tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-304500742017-08-16T07:08:35.615-04:00Crystal Mess<b>I was always the class clown... now I'm an adult clown...haha! Basically, I'm a harmless nut.
~Crystal Gail Mangum a/k/a "Pleasure Ryde"</b>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.comBlogger34125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-89265238286909709352008-02-22T11:16:00.003-05:002008-02-22T17:58:18.584-05:00"Joan Foster" Eviscerates Robert Steel<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/Satan-1.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/Satan-1.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?s=7347b9a48e94cdbc31cdb2f9b13dd9ab&showtopic=6177">I’ll admit</a> to having been fascinated by the Scott Peterson trial…this seemingly “normal” young man with his pregnant lovely wife. How did those last horrific moments come about? What did he say? What did she? What was in his mind as he watched her die? I would wonder how he rationalized snuffing her life and the life of his child? If one could ever get the truth from him, what would he say? What was he thinking? How does someone like this form a personal defense… even to his own self?<br /><br />Nowadays I think this same way about Robert Steele and Dick Brodhead. What’s the emotional and moral make-up of folks like this? I’ll confess I’ve never met either of them. I bet they are charming at cocktail parties and impressive in their insular little world, okay…fine. But everything I ever needed to know about either of them, I learned , if true and accurate, in the written summary of the third lawsuit.<br /><br />Let’s start with Steele. Jason Trumpbour relays a conversation with Steele that just might be the most stunning moral indictment of the current Duke leadership to date. Now, stay with me here. Trumpbour tells us Steele felt it would be best FOR DUKE if Collin, Reade, and Dave…WENT TO TRIAL. Best for Duke. Say that again: “BEST FOR DUKE.” If convicted, he shrugged, “it would all be sorted out on appeal.”<br /><br />Who thinks like that?<br /><br />What kind of man thinks like that?<br /><br />I can’t even type that without stopping to take a deep, outraged breath. Imagine you are the Finnertys, or the Evans. Or the Seligmanns. Your child, your boy, already scourged, and branded, and sullied by an outrageous LIE, would best serve the University’s interest by going TO TRIAL, perhaps being convicted of a felony and imprisoned in some hellhole. This is the measured, moral opinion of the chairman of the Board of Trustees at his school. It would be BEST for Duke for your INNOCENT child, your ravaged family to endure a TRIAL. And let’s remember the backdrop of this time: the Black Panthers, well represented , no doubt, in our prison system, shouting at Reade “You’re a dead man walking!!!” Sure, Chairman Steele, let it all be sorted out on appeal.<br /><br />BEST FOR DUKE. He can pull these three young lives out of the equation, discard them, and focus on what’s BEST FOR DUKE.<br /><br />Wow! That Chairman Steele!…he gives new definition to being a “company man.” And Brodhead, the subservient, self-serving lackey. Duke parents and alumni, you can’t say from here on, you don’t know the quality and moral compass of your leadership!<br /><br />So what does that say about how Steele ( and his willing sidekick Brodhead) perceive the worth, the humanity, the reality of the lives of Collin, Reade, and Dave? Are they expendable for the PR purposes of Duke? Is it much more INSTITUTIONALLY important in the mind of Chairman Steele to prop up a life-destroying LIE so that Duke appears even-handed and sensitive to Durham’s homegrown strippers and lap-dancers? In lock-step with Durham’s cracker-jack, dump-burning governing entities? Supportive of the “castrate” sign- carrying, racist- diatribes of its activist professors? Why Chairman Steele should have just run a spot on local TV and made his message plain:<br /><br />“ Hi, I’m Bob Steele, Chairman of the BOT of Duke University and I approve this message:<br /><br />In the best interests of Duke University, to show our inclusiveness and reverence of even drug-addled, mentally ill prostitutes; our fear of our activist faculty; our guilt-fueled submissiveness to the local political intelligentsia; and our heavy duty P.C. credentials …. we will aid and assist D.A. Nifong in railroading three innocent students of ours and besmirching for life the reputations of their teammates. We and our employees will accomplish this by ignoring and/or suppressing or even ALTERING when we must any exculpatory evidence to the contrary. Like the local newspapers, we will also try to level the playing field, by ravaging the “histories” of these young men to try to bring them down to a level where the Lap-dancer /deranged former felon /and prostitute will appear their moral “equal.” To that end, we will empower commissions to uncover anything and everything negative that we might hand the media to envelop these boys in that stain. We will opine that “whatever they did was bad enough.” We will cancel their season and start a “Mea Culpa” progression around town, mournfully apologetic for having these young privileged men in our midst. We will turn our eyes away from any and all violations of OUR OWN conduct codes as long as the objects of these violations are these young men of the wrong race and income group. We will refuse to meet with their terrified parents or read the defense files that might force us to confront their ABSOLUTE INNOCENCE. We will look on mute while our faculty radicals ravage them in print from ad to op-ed over and over again. Proclaim them “farm animals” and let our silence speak approval.<br /><br />We will do all this in the best interests of Duke University. To send to the world and our student body, through our actions, a moral imprint of what the leadership of Duke University considers the new expediency, the new righteousness. Here is our blueprint for what’s really important for those who aspire to assume the helm of any business. It’s not people, it’s not the lives of three young men or the reputation of forty-plus others. It’s PR and PC. Public relations and Political Correctness. It’s IMAGE. It’s that thin layer of false veneer we’ll protect NOT with OUR LIVES OR LIVELIHOODS, oh no! But those of OTHERS!<br /><br />It’s protecting our bottom line and our top guys at the price of those we consider expendable. The Coach, the kids. In the business world we can kick the small investor and the retiree to the curb in the holy name of our corporate interest; at Duke, it’s three white students and their white coach. That’s our lesson for the leaders of tomorrow: it’s BETTER FOR US if these three nothing, nobody, non –protected species kids go to trial… so-o-o-o, let’s help it happen. If convicted….Gee Whiz, no Biggie…it will be settled out “on appeal.”<br /><br />How does that sound to you, Alumni and parents? Do you like what you hear from the top? Am I wrong? Okay, you give me another way to interpret those words between Trumpbour and Steele. Look at your child before you do. Think of HIM as Chairman Steele and his Lapdog Brodhead’s sacrificial lamb. “If convicted, it can be sorted out on appeal.”<br /><br />“YOU’RE A DEAD MAN WALKING” they shouted at Reade.<br /><br />I’ve really tried to think of an alternative take on Chairman Steele’s words. Not to excuse or defend him but just because they astound me. I don’t know people who think like this. Maybe I don’t move in the proper exalted circles.<br /><br />Thank God.<br /><br />How can the best interests of Duke trump three real young lives? How can the best interests of Duke require the suspension of all logic and common sense, the suppression of evidence, the submission to the mob? How can the best interests of Duke under the current leadership be only about artificial IMAGE…not about its students, not about the rule of law, and dear God, especially….” not about the truth?”<br /><br />No parent or alumni can say “move on” until they can confront the awful reality of those unanswered questions. Until they absorb the consequences of the cold fact THAT THIS IS THE MINDSET of those who still remain in power at Duke.<br /><br />I'm reminded of the last powerful scene in the first Godfather movie: the bereaved newly widowed sister, waving the newspaper describing the Mob hits , pointing at Michael Corleone, besseching her sister-in'law to face it all..."THAT'S your husband! THAT'S your husband!"<br /><br />That's your Chairman of the BOT.<br /><br />That's your President of the once esteemed Duke University.<br /><br />“Honey, you can’t leave” … until all you "Move-On Minions" confront the enormity of what was done to these kids.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-57190935835155111712007-10-13T19:18:00.000-04:002007-10-15T09:05:32.943-04:00Tortmaster, Hero of the Hoax<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ajRrCsw3njg/RxGMAh_N-BI/AAAAAAAAAC4/BO40b-U4Ov4/s1600-h/fuckyoudouchebags.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ajRrCsw3njg/RxGMAh_N-BI/AAAAAAAAAC4/BO40b-U4Ov4/s400/fuckyoudouchebags.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5121028192048379922" /></a><br /><br />A long, long, loooooong time ago, the <em>only</em> reason to visit talkleft became the opportunity to read the consistently excellent analyses of a single voice of reason among many, many vapid blowhards.<br /><br />Tortmaster. <br /><br />His utter vaporization of the "Listening Statement" Revisionists in today's <a href="http://www.dukechronicle.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticleComments&ustory_id=dcb66275-be5d-4d54-9e0e-cc5e4c5710c0&startRow=51">Chronicle</a> warrants re-publication in full, in as many fora as possible, as the student athletes' attorneys hone their Bowie knives for jungle conflict. Tortmaster's painstakingly thorough evisceration of the ad, which exemplifies the "critical thinking" of 88 lucky coffee house poets and assistant librarians, begins shortly past mid-scroll through the comments page accessed by the above link, at "2:31 AM EST." It continues uninterrupted through six consecutive posts, the last timed in at "3:30 AM EST."<br /><br />It reads, in its entirety, as follows: <br /><br />Let's look at the Listening Ad, but first let's look at it in context. It was drafted mere days after the alleged rape became public knowledge. Was it rash to jump on a bandwagon that was only 12 days old? <br /><br />Keep in mind that even eventually disbarred attorney Mike Nifong would not indict anyone for the alleged crime until 12 days AFTER the Listening ad was published. Any conclusions about a "social disaster" did not even have enough time to become properly gossip-based yet. <br /><br />There were the protests, including the "castrate" banner, the potbangers marching up Buchanan Boulevard, and, of course, the wanted posters depicting the faces of the lax players. Not pictures of the eventually-indicted players, but pictures of all the players. <br /><br />The context includes the fact that local media had begun to focus on the Lacrosse team. A week before the Listening ad came out in the student newspaper, the News&Observer ran an editorial by Ruth Sheehan presuming guilt and presuming a lacrosse "wall of silence," with her "we know you know" piece. <br /><br />The context also includes the fact that the Listening ad's author, Wahneema Lubiano, chose to publish it in the school's newspaper. What better way to cause harm to students than publish something about them in the student's own newspaper? Who better to publish it than gobs of faculty and whole university departments and programs? <br /><br />The context also includes other editorials written by the Gang of 88, including the infamous one by Professor Chafe with the Emmett Till comparison. He wrote the following in the Duke Chronicle a week before the Listening Ad: <br /><br />"Sex and race have been intertwined since the beginning of American history. They remain so today, throughout America and here at Duke. The events that occurred on Buchanan Boulevard two weeks ago are part of a deep and troubling history." <br /><br />But Lubiano also had an editorial published in the News&Observer in which she wrote in May 2006: <br /><br />"An anger is surfacing against aspects of everyday life at Duke, an anger that is playing out in the aftermath of the accusations against the lacrosse team and responses to those accusations. The changes at Duke that critics want to see are coming more sharply into view as a result of struggle in this moment of spectacle." <br /><br />The Listening ad author wrote that "[a]n anger is surfacing ... in the aftermath of the ... accusations against the lacrosse team ...." She wrote this in a paper with a printing of 167,891 copies each weekday in the Raleigh-Durham area. <br /><br />The context also includes what the author of the Listening ad thought of the ad herself. As reported by ESPN, "Lubiano knew some would see the ad as a stake through the collective heart of the lacrosse team." <br /><br />The context of the "Listening ad" included some lacrosse students sleeping in cars to avoid public consternation or worse, staying over at the homes of anonymous friends or even leaving the state. <br /><br />On March 30, 2006, a few days before the publication of the Listening ad, the News&Observer printed a story which included the following subheading and copy: <br /><br />"TENSION BUILDS <br /><br />The case, which erupted last week when police took DNA from all but one member of the team, heightened tensions between the city and Duke, a private university sometimes accused of walling itself off from a community with blue-collar roots. <br /><br />The incident has sparked outrage on and off campus about classism, racism and sexual violence. The woman, an N.C. Central University student and employee of an escort service hired for the party, is black; she told authorities that her attackers were white.... <br /><br />Frustration over Duke's response continued Wednesday. <br /><br />Wednesday's Take Back the Night rally, planned months ago, drew nearly a thousand people. Students and residents walked nearly a mile from East Campus to the landmark chapel on West Campus, chanting, 'Hey, hey, ho, ho, all rape has got to go.' <br /><br />Ignacio Adriasola, an art history graduate student, had a sign taped to his shirt: 'It isn't what Duke has, but what it lax,' using the shorthand word for lacrosse. <br /><br />Jean Leonard, Duke's sexual assault support services coordinator, welcomed rally participants from Duke, NCCU and Durham Technical Community College. TV trucks from national media outlets rumbled nearby. 'Tonight is about more than a great media story that the nation has great interest in,' Leonard said. 'Tonight is more about healing.' " <br /><br />(capitalization of subheading added). <br /><br />As you can see, the context included an atmosphere of heightened worry; Duke administrative staff and students alike were on the record presuming guilt. Tension was building. The national media had arrived at last! This was all BEFORE Lubiano published the "Listening ad." <br /><br />Approximately a week prior to the Listening ad, the students' lawyers were already concerned about prejudicial pretrial publicity. A March 30, 2006 News&Observer article had the following headline: "Lacrosse players' lawyers object." <br /><br />Eventually, Mike Nifong is disbarred, in part, for his prejudicial pretrial public statements, and the defense lawyers cite Duke faculty in their Motion to Change Venue. Of course, such a motion is filed when a party believes that it cannot receive a fair trial in that particular venue. <br /><br />On the "Diverse" Education website, it is posted: <br /><br />"The [Listening] advertisement gained additional prominence when, in the fall, the defense attorney for the lacrosse players requested a change of venue, citing the advertisement as evidence of Duke faculty bias against the players." <br /><br />About a week before the publication of the "Listening ad," every literate person in Durham (and some who just watched television news) knew that the BIG DAY was approaching. Mike Nifong had publicly said that DNA results for the case would be available on or about April 10, 2006. On April 1, 2006, the N&O printed an article proclaiming: <br /><br />"District Attorney Mike Nifong said Friday that no charges will be filed in the investigation of a report of rape at a Duke University lacrosse party until at least the WEEK OF APRIL 10. He also said he won't release DNA results that had been expected next week. <br /><br />The tests, which are comparing the DNA of 46 lacrosse players with samples taken from the accuser as well as from towels, rags and rugs in the house where the party was held, COULD BE COMPLETED NEXT WEEK, Nifong said." <br /><br />(emphasis added) <br /><br />Now, anybody riding the backs of presumptively innocent students for his or her political agenda would know that APRIL 10 was an important day. If the DNA came back negative, the sane response would be a dismissal of claims (especially given the alleged 30-minute violent gangrape by 3 Division I athletes). <br /><br />In other words, if hay were to be made, it had better be harvested fast. In a mass e-mail to other professors, Lubiano directed her colleagues to review the Listening ad quickly, sign on and hurry up: "We're trying for Thursday (04/05) if we can do it; if not, then next Monday (04/10)." <br /><br />Thus, not only does it appear that Lubiano whipped up the "Listening ad" in record time, she did so as quickly as possible in case the boys were ACTUALLY FOUND TO BE INNOCENT. <br /><br />The best context of all, of course, is the author's interpretation of her own handiwork. In this case, Lubiano unequivocally stated in her e-mail to colleagues that, <br /><br />"African & African-American Studies is placing an ad in The Chronicle ABOUT THE LACROSSE TEAM INCIDENT." (emphasis added). <br /><br />So, it seems that Lubiano's admission against interest proves that the Listening ad was about "the lacrosse team incident." But she went further and signed up not just 87 other colleagues, but also whole university programs and departments, including the following: <br /><br />Duke University's African-American Studies <br />Duke University's Romance Studies <br />Duke University's Social & Health Sciences <br />Duke University's Franklin Humanities Institute <br />Duke University's Critical Studies Program <br />Duke University's Art Department <br />Duke University's Art History Department <br />Duke University's Latin American Studies <br />Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies <br />Duke University's Women's Studies Program <br />Duke University's Program in Education <br />Duke University's European Studies Program <br /><br />The "Listening ad," taken in context, heightened tensions on campus, aligned a huge number of professors, departments and programs against the lacrosse players, was raised in a Motion to Change Venue to protect the students and joined such other recent disparaging editorials as Sheehan's and Chafe's. <br /><br />To say the ad was not about the lax hoax is to ignore the ad's author, the timing of its publication, and even the first line of the ad. For those who have not seen the "Listening ad," it can be found at Johnsville.blogspot.com. <br /><br />At the top of this "PAID ADVERTISEMENT," it provides: "Regardless of the results of the police investigation ...." This is stated without previous mention of any event deserving of a "police investigation." The author was obviously referring to the Duke hoax investigation. <br /><br />In the same paragraph, Lubiano describes "this moment's extraorinary spotlight." Again, an obvious reference to the Duke rape hoax. <br /><br />The next paragraph, which is just one sentence, claims that "[I]t is a disaster nonetheless." The author appears to be describing BOTH what happened at 610 Buchanan and other perceived acts of racism at Duke (and elsewhere). <br /><br />The next one-sentence paragraph states that "[t]hese students are shouting and whispering about what happened to this young woman and to themselves." <br /><br />THAT is a prejudgment. The words used were "WHAT HAPPENED to this young woman ...." The author could have used words such as "what was alleged to have happened." Lubiano mentioned in her e-mail that she had made drafts of the piece, so she had time to edit the language. It is also instructive to note that the Listening ad sets an early emphasis on "shouting." <br /><br />The next paragraph appears to be a quote, but there are no quotation marks or attribution. This is a continuing problem in the advertisement. "We want the absence of terror.... Terror robs you of language and you need language for the healing to begin." As stated previously, the author was obviously discussing the hoaxed rape allegations and generic perceived racism. Which would the reader perceive as more likely deserving of actual "terror"? <br /><br />The next paragraph again appears to be a quotation mark-less quote, but this is attributed to the Independent (but no particular speaker). Significantly, this quote appeared approximately 3 days after the Duke rape hoax became public knowledge: "This is not a different experience for us here at Duke University. We go to class with racist classmates, we go to gym with people who are racists ... It's part of the experience." (ellipses in original). <br /><br />The author is apparently conveying that rape (or is it just the generic perceived racism) is as abundant as ipods about campus. Since I am an American, I read the ad left to right and top to bottom, the context leads me to believe that rape may be as prevalent as fast food at Duke. <br /><br />After three unattributed apparent quotes, there is this: "... I am only comfortable talking about THIS EVENT in my room with close friends. I am actually afraid to even bring it up in public. But worse, I wonder now about everything.... If SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS TO ME ...." (emphasis added). <br /><br />What do you think "this event" means? The Duke hoax, of course. No other specific event is alluded to in the least. Also, consider what the apparent quotation implies: The speaker has nothing to fear if there is just an investigation of students who are presumed innocent, but she does have something to fear "if something like this happens" to her. Something like what? A rape, of course, a prejudged, juried and executed rape. <br /><br />After another unattributed quote, there is, in the center of the Listening ad, in giant eye-catching print, "WHAT DOES A SOCIAL DISASTER SOUND LIKE?" <br /><br />After two quotes attributed only to the Independent (and not a person), the ad goes on to provide: "... no one is really talking about how to keep the YOUNG WOMAN herself central to this conversation, how to keep her humanity before us ... she doesn't seem to be visible in this. Not for the university, not for us." (emphasis added). <br /><br />It seems strange to me that everyone quoted by Lubiano was a poet. In a poetic way, the author inserted this "quote" in the ad to apparently get the university to support the "invisible" woman and not the university's students. <br /><br />The next unattributed "quote" also seems to be egging on the University and the community to strive to achieve greater success in arresting someone. Consider how this "quote" attempts to elicit action while it, at the same time, prejudges the case and prejudices the lacrosse players: <br /><br />"I can't help but think about the different attention given to WHAT HAS HAPPENED from what it would have been if the guys had been not just black but participating in a different sport, like football, something that's not SO UPSCALE." (emphasis added). <br /><br />"What has happened" refers to the Duke lacrosse hoax, and the author appears to be saying, that he or she wants arrests now! The "different attention" is the lock-up of the offenders. Finally, the use of the "so upscale" language prejudices the boys in a classist way. <br /><br />The next unattributed "quote" again appears to egg on the university to take action about the Duke rape hoax. The "quote" provides: <br /><br />"And this is what I'm thinking right now - Duke isn't really responding to THIS. Not really. And THIS, what HAS HAPPENED, IS A DISASTER. THIS IS A SOCIAL DISASTER." (emphasis mine except last sentence). <br /><br />Use of the word "this," of course, refers to the Duke rape hoax. So do the words "what has happened." Even a feeble-minded person would conclude that an investigation is not a disaster, but a rape would be. "This" rape "happened." That is a prejudgment. <br /><br />The remaining substantive portions of the "Listening ad" provide additional clues as to the motivation behind it, including use of the date "March 13th," which could only reference the date of the fake gangrape. <br /><br />Lubiano notes at the bottom that "[t]his ad, printed in the most easily seen venue on campus, is just one way for us to say that we're hearing what our students are saying." <br /><br />This raises a couple of issues in my mind: (1) it is a "Paid Advertisement," which means that faculty felt it was so important that they spent their own money on it; and (2) the implication is that entire departments and programs at Duke University also paid for the advertisement, which as described above prejudged the students as guilty of "this" and "what happened." <br /><br />Then, Lubiano goes on to write the following: "We're turning up the volume in a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait." <br /><br />- "[T]urning up the volume" is akin to the "shouting" described earlier in the ad. In context, this is at a time when the local and national media have already turned up the volume, when potbangers and 1,000-person domestic violence protest marches were roaming Durham. <br /><br />- "[T]urning up the volume" and "shouting" do not seem to be the best way for university professors to achieve a measured response or dialogue. <br /><br />- "[I]n a moment" again refers to the fake rape and its warm afterglow. <br /><br />- "[I]n a moment when some of the most vulnerable among us are being asked to quiet down while we wait" refers to waiting on due process and court hearings. Lubiano and the Gang of 88 are telling their students NOT to wait for due process. Join a lynch mob, see the world. <br /><br />Next, the Gang of 88 compliment the potbangers and protesters, leaflet spammers, wanted poster hangers, castrate banner holders (one for each side of that HUGE banner) with this: "To the students speaking individually and to the protestors making collective noise, thank you for NOT WAITING and for making yourselves heard." (emphasis added). <br /><br />- Lubiano and the Gang of 88 are lucky some crackpot did not take "individual[]" action. <br /><br />-"[T]hank you for NOT WAITING" is positive reinforcement for judgment rushing and the perceived university-sanctioned elimination of due process. <br /><br />Finally, the "Listening ad" concludes with a list of all the university departments and programs aligned against the lacrosse students. I can just imagine a lacrosse player reading the ad and thinking, "We didn't do it, but the African & African-American Studies Program, the Psychology Department and even the Franklin Humanities Institute believe we did, and they want us arrested." <br /><br />A website address is given because of "space limitations" in listing all of the faculty signatories, which lends weight (in numbers) to the charges and instructions contained in the ad. <br /><br />My problems with the "Listening ad," which are many and varied, do not include the allegation that the ad's author is dumb. Far from that, I think the ad was well-crafted to tacitly, yet obviously, refer to the rape as basically well-established fact. <br /><br />It was also surgically designed to extract as much marrow as possible from the bones of Duke University. The Gang of 88 chose that moment to press an advantage and "negotiate" their demands with the university. Some of my problems with the "Listening ad" include the following: <br /><br />A. Using what was essentially gossip (triple hearsay at best) to stir up an already tense situation. <br /><br />B. Using this gossip to extract demands from the University. <br /><br />C. Providing negative pre-trial publicity against their own students. <br /><br />D. Failing to reflect, soberly, on the ramifications of their actions (lynching their own students)(ignoring due process)(the propriety of basing demands on gossip). <br /><br />E. Implying, in a crafty way, that it was the institutional belief of a large faction in the University that rushing to judgment was condoned. <br /><br />F. Implying, in a careful way, that it was the institutional belief of a large faction in the University that a rational approach to days-old gossip was "making collective noise" rather than waiting to allow due process protections to attach. <br /><br />G. The shoddy scholarship involved. <br /><br />H. Attacking and attempting to alienate 46 of their own students. <br /><br />I. Painting themselves into such a corner that they could not later apologize and acknowledge their misdeeds. <br /><br />J. Providing intellectual support to a false prosecution. <br /><br />K. Prejudging and convicting their innocent students. <br /><br />L. Compounding their error with a subsequent "Clarifying Statement," editorials, letters to the editor, articles, "Shut Up and Teach" forums, etc. <br /><br />M. Bringing the University into disrepute. <br /><br />_________________ <br /><br />Based upon their power play, the Gang of 88 were able to extract a number of concessions from Duke, including, among other things, the elevation of the African & African-American Studies Department, the appointment of a Diversity & Equity Officer, numerous committee investigations, including the infamous Campus Culture Initiative, various benefits for faculty and students involved in the protests or "Listening ad" and, most significantly, a chilling of speech on campus, causing other professors and administrators to refrain from denouncing the obvious hoax (and the actions of the 88). <br /><br />These are my opinions only. MOO! Gregory <br /><br />The End. <br />__________________<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dukechronicle.com/home/index.cfm?event=displayArticleComments&ustory_id=dcb66275-be5d-4d54-9e0e-cc5e4c5710c0&startRow=51">Blog Hooligan</a><br /><br />vs.<br /><br /><a href="http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2007/10/standing-up-fur-duke-kc-and-taylor.html">Tenured</a> <a href="http://fds.duke.edu/db?attachment-17--1263-view-347">Dook</a> <a href="http://www.barnard.columbia.edu/sfonline/sport/printkho.htm">"Professors"</a><br /><br />Too funny. <br /><br />And John Burness responds, <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2007/10/duke-case-pressler-sues-duke.html">"For what?"</a>, when asked if the University would apologize to the indicted players, post-exoneration.<br /><br />Keep gearing for trial, Duke, as the 88 begin simultaneously stitching the world's largest wallet while singing, "We Shall Overcome."August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-65453617873197855142007-03-03T22:52:00.001-05:002007-03-04T12:47:01.661-05:00Disgraced Nifong Should Resign Now<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/Jerk.jpg?t=1169757853"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/Jerk.jpg?t=1169757853" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In 2002, <a href="http://www.halt.org/reform_projects/lawyer_accountability/report_card/index.php">HALT</a>, <span style="font-style:italic;">An Organization Of Americans For Legal Reform</span>, undertook the first comprehensive evaluation of the legal profession's system of self-regulation in ten years. Of fifty-one "Lawyer Discipline Report Cards" issued (one for each state and the District of Columbia), the State Bar of <a href="http://www.halt.org/reform_projects/lawyer_accountability/report_card/northcarorc.pdf">North Carolina ranked fifieth in the nation</a>. Only North Carolina and Pennsylvania flunked outright, each then receiving an overall grade of "F."<br /><br />In <a href="http://www.halt.org/reform_projects/lawyer_accountability/report_card_2006/">2006</a>, HALT again issued Report Cards on lawyer accountability. In the interim, overall performance of the <a href="http://www.halt.org/reform_projects/lawyer_accountability/report_card_2006/pdf/PA_LDRC_06.pdf">Pennsylvania</a> Grievance Committee leapt to fifth best in the country. <a href="http://www.halt.org/reform_projects/lawyer_accountability/report_card_2006/pdf/NC_LDRC_06.pdf">North Carolina? Fiftieth.</a> The NC Bar received "Incomplete" grades in the categories of "Adequacy of Discipline Imposed" and "Promptness" because it failed to provide data related to those categories to the American Bar Association. Actually, it failed to provide the data because it doesn't even keep records or statistics attending such insignificant issues. Incredibly, despite the <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2007/01/brad-bannon-great-lawyer-great-person.html">pig circus</a> staged by the Bar in the aftermath of <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2007/01/were-watching-you.html"><i>Hoke & Graves v. Gell</i></a>, the NC Grievance Committee somehow did manage to <span style="font-style:italic;">raise</span> its overall grade, to a pitiful "D." <br /><br />The criminal misconduct of David Hoke and Debra Graves during the prosecution of Alan Gell would have resulted in the state-sanctioned murder of an innocent man but for the heroic perseverance of Mary Pollard and Jim Cooney. Hoke and Graves were ultimately "tried" for their unconscionable behavior before the NC State Bar Grievance Committee. They made out quite well, thank you very much. They are still practicing law, <a href="http://pview.findlaw.com/view/2167670_1?noconfirm=0">still prosecuting cases</a> for the State's Attorney General, still wielding the full armament of the State's power to deprive individuals of their personal liberties, and their lives. Criminal charges never followed. Incarceration was never really their concern. <br /><br />Why? <br /><br />No one cared. <br /><br />Okay, okay, Gell cared. His mom cared. Bill Anderson cared. Thankfully, so did his appellate attorneys and Joe Neff. But, really, a poor, red neck petty criminal wrongly convicted of killing a poor, red neck pedophile in a poor North Carolina town? Ho Hum. Woefully insufficient to wake the drive-by media. Woefully insufficient to warrant ink in newspapers outside Bertie and contiguous counties. Woefully insufficient to spur the Bar to abandon the usual business of protecting its own, particularly those ensconced in the mail of State Prosecutorial Power. <br /><br />Well, people care now. Rich white male power rules. Good thing for the sons. <br /><br />Now, the whole world is watching.<br /><br /><i>The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!</i><br /><br />The whole world is watching and waiting to see if the State Bar will yet again thumb its nose at the Constitution; The Canon of Ethics; The Disciplinary Rules; The beyond-a-doubt evidence of a criminal frame-up orchestrated by an avaricious agent of the State solely for personal gain. The whole world is watching and waiting to see the State Bar <i>try</i> to save Good Ol' Blues Brothers Band Boy Nifong. <br /><br />Hee hee hee hee. <br /><br /><i>Nah gah doit.</i> <br /><br />Can Governor Mike Easley, he of, um, higher political aspirations, allow the citizenry of forty-nine states to point at <em>his</em> as the one break-away Banana Republic of our Union? The one sovereign tobacco field where the Constitution simply doesn't apply? <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/548945.html">Of course not!</a> <br /><br /><i>Wouldn't be prudent.</i> <br /><br />That's not to say Nifonging doesn't happen daily throughout the country. It does. But the whole world isn't watching the other forty nine states. The whole world is watching Mike Easley's. Why? Because Mike Easley personally appointed an immoral, sociopathic liar to be a State's "Minister of Justice." He didn't know it at the time, of course. But he's still fucked. The other forty nine governors must hit their knees every night, look heavenward, and exclaim, "Thank you, Jesus!"<br /> <br />Can the State Attorney General's Office risk exposing itself and, by extension, the State itself, to incalculable civil damages for further perpetuating a wrongful prosecution that never should have been brought nearly a very long, very wrong, year ago? Shirley, you jest. <br /><br />Do you wonder at all whether Easley and Cooper, or minions on their behalf, have had double secret communications with the Grievance Committee of the State Bar? Me neither. Does anyone think it odd that Easley kept his trap shut for months and months and months and months and months as Nifong built the Hoax but now just can't stop yammering on about how he was LIED TO by that duplicitous little prick? I don't. Easley knows what's heading Mikey's way. Damage Control Central, <em>we got an off-schedule train comin' two miles out.</em><br /><br />I feel sorry for the North Carolina Bar. I really do sympathize with the Gentleman's Club. Were it not for that damn Crystal Mangum and her fantastic lies, business might have continued as usual in North Carolina. Durham railroads might have forever run on schedule. Durham problems might have forever commanded merely Durham solutions. But Defendant Nifong had to go and fuck it all up by picking on the wrong families. What a dumbass. If he weren't an egomaniacal, narcissistic sociopath possessed of but Tar Heel intellect, he would have thought through the potential consequences of picking on the wrong families. But he's not, so he didn't, and now, hell, everything's gotta change. The Bar and the State must, at least, convey the <em>appearance</em> of giving a damn about that silly piece of parchment deteriorating under bullet-proof glass in Washington. What with the whole world watching, and all. Nifong gives them that chance.<br /><br />So, the disgraced Defendant Nifong should resign now. Because of the blog attention devoted to the Duke Hoax, millions of people, myself included, now know of the Gell Frame and the Bar's essential sanctioning of it. The Bar simply cannot act, or fail to act, in <i>Matter of Nifong</i> as it did in <i>Matter of Hoke and Graves</i>. It has made clear that it is going to bend him over. Stick a fork in Mikey's law license. He's done. Continued petulant defiance only hurts his position on the end of the plank, but he's just not wired to appreciate it. He's too stupid to see that he would be better served looking for another job, now.<br /><br />Irving Joiner and Al McSurely, on behalf of the NCNAACP, should talk to the defendant and demand his immediate resignation. His continued presence at the helm of the Durham County D.A.'s office is a <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson170.html">grave threat</a> to all innocent defendants of color compromised by lack of the financial means to retain counsel and experts capable of <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2007/02/nifong-response.html">deciphering a sham prosecution</a>. <br /><br />Ruth Sheehan, Cathy Davidson, Karla Holloway, Wahneema Lubiano and <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/07/now-hear-this-dont-be-obtuse.html">NOW's Bennett and Hopper</a> should also demand an audience with the defendant to urge that he step down. His perpetuation of the Crystal Mess, Mangum's "fantastic lies," has immeasurably set back the interwoven causes of militant feminists and the "group rights" reverse racists, as well as the struggle of real rape victims to be accepted as truthful when reporting crimes of sexual violence. <br /><br />His staff most of all should demand Nifong's disappearance, forthwith and forever, from the halls of the Durham County Judicial Building. His unscrupulous character paints each and every one of them, and the <em>good</em> work resulting from their collective efforts, with an unfairly colored brush. Well, each and every one except those guilty of complicity in furthering the Hoax. Maybe Big C and Saacks can talk some sense into him.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-34013197414218615482007-01-12T11:49:00.001-05:002007-01-15T09:45:46.289-05:00We're Watching You<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/watchingyou.jpg?t=1168736711"><img style="WIDTH: 400px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/watchingyou.jpg?t=1168736711" border="0" /></a><br /><br />NCAG Roy Cooper <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=2792929&amp;page=2">showed up</a> today to confirm that, upon Defendant Nifong's recusal request, his office has agreed to take over the prosecution of the Duke Frame cases. He said all the right things, about the need to focus not on how the cases got to his office, but where they will ultimately go from here. He spoke of the need to conduct a full, fair, and thorough investigation of the Durham County D.A.'s case files, conduct interviews of Crystal Mangum, other witnesses, and investigators [Hi, Mark! Hi, Linwood! Hi, Ben!]. He pledged that the actions of his office will be spurred exclusively by what the facts show to be the truth, and that "blinders" will be worn to shield the investigation from taint by "external pressures" [Hi Whiners! Hi Blog Hooligans!]. He played Solomon [Did you watch, Mikey?], noting that the transfer does not necessarily mean, either, that there will be a trial or that the cases will be dismissed. Sound good so far?<br /><br />Unfortunately, he went on to note that the matters have been assigned to the Special Prosecutions Section of his office, where two lawyers, Jim Coman and Mary Winstead, will have primary case management authority. Coman and Winstead. Hoo boy. Cooper's vesting chief prosecutorial authority in these two is potentially a bad thing. A VEH-ry bad thing.<br /><br />To understand why Coman's appointment is most troubling, one must have a working knowledge of the case of <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/192028.html">Alan Gell</a>, a man wrongly accused, tried, convicted and sentenced to die for the 1995 murder of Allen Ray Jenkins. Gell spent ten years in jail for the crime, much of it on death row. The only problem? He didn't do it.<br /><br />Jenkins' rotting corpse was found on April 14, 1995. A troubled teenage girl, Crystal Annette Morris, who ultimately pled guilty to second degree murder for her role in the killing, claimed that she was present when Gell shot Jenkins to death on April 3, 1995. April 3d was the only date on which Gell could have committed the murder, since he was proven to have been out of state on April 4th and 5th, and incarcerated in a North Carolina jail on unrelated charges from April 6 through the 14th, the date on which Jenkins' dead body was found.<br /><br />Morris' version of Gell's "involvement" changed eight times between her first police interview, on the day after Jenkins' body was discovered, and her testimony at trial in 1998. One such version was captured in a tape recorded telephone conversation with her boyfriend, in which she intimated both her involvement in Jenkins' killing and the plan to frame Alan Gell. Morris was corroborated by her best friend, Shanna Hall, who also ultimately pled guilty to second degree murder for her role in the crime. <br /><br />Additionally, <em>seventeen</em> people, including the decedent's brother, neighbors, friends and town acquaintances, had given law enforcement personnel statements setting forth their recollections of having seen Jenkins alive between April 7th and 10th (while Gell was incarerated).<br /><br />How could Gell have been convicted, you ask?<br /><br />After SBI and Aulander police authority had decided to deem April 3d the date of the murder, based solely on the stories of Crystal Morris and Shanna Hall, the two lead investigtors re-interviewed those acquaintances who had claimed to have seen Jenkins' alive as much as a week later. As <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/284484.html">Joe Neff</a> reported it, <br /><br /><i>Still, (SBI Agent) Ransome and (Aulander Police Chief) Godwin had a problem. In each of Crystal's versions, the murder occurred April 3. But the SBI and the district attorney files had statements from 17 people saying they had seen Jenkins alive after April 3.<br /><br />The next day, July 28, Godwin and Ransome set out to clear up the discrepancies. They went to Ahoskie and re-interviewed four witnesses who had seen Jenkins buying gas, fish and a meal on April 10.<br /><br />Ransome and Godwin informed each witness that Jenkins had died April 3. Each one then gave a new statement to the effect that they were not sure of the actual date, just that it was in early April.<br /><br />Armed with the revised statements, Godwin and Ransome returned to Aulander to look for two key witnesses -- Jenkins' next-door neighbors, Bobby and Mary Hunt.<br /><br />The two officers found Mary Hunt at her job at Farm and Home Gas Co. at the corner of Main and Commerce.<br /><br />Ransome later dictated a report from this interview: "Hunt was re-interviewed because it was learned that Allen Ray Jenkins had been shot and killed on Monday, April 3, 1995. Hunt stated that she last saw Jenkins on Saturday morning, April 1, 1995."<br /><br />Mary Hunt did not learn the contents of this report until a reporter showed her a copy in October 2002. The Hunts are clear on their story: She last saw Jenkins on Saturday, April 8, six days before his body was found. She was sitting in her office, waiting for the clock hands to hit noon so she could go to lunch, when she saw him stop at the traffic light outside her window.<br /><br />"Oh, no," she thought. "He's getting ready for another party tonight."<br /><br />The next day, April 9, Bobby Hunt saw Jenkins cooking fish in the back yard with some friends. Bobby Hunt went to bed early, as he did every Sunday. He needed to be at work at the Food Lion in Williamston at 5 a.m.<br /><br />A grandson and his friend were playing when he went to bed. About 10 p.m., Bobby Hunt was awakened by a loud rumbling sound. He went out and told Mary to quiet the children down.<br /><br />She told her husband she was the only one there. The children had left an hour ago.<br /><br />All that week, the Hunts noticed that Jenkins' kitchen light was on constantly, shining into their bedroom.<br /><br />The Hunts, who still live in the brick ranch house at 301 Lombardy St., are just as certain that the kitchen light was not on for two weeks, and that there were no quiet weekend evenings before Jenkins' body was found.<br /><br />And the grass: Jenkins mowed his lawn twice a week, and the grass had not gone unmowed for two weeks. It would have been much higher.<br /><br />Shown the SBI file stating she last saw Jenkins on April 1, Mary Hunt shook her head at Ransome's report.<br /><br />"This is not right," she said. "That's wrong there. I didn't say April first. He must have put that down wrong."<br /><br />Mary Hunt's comments came seven years too late for Alan Gell.</i> <br /><br />Between his arrest and first trial, four different attorneys were assigned to represent the indigent Alan Gell. Suffice to say, none of them did anything. Well, the first two did accept positions as prosecutors, one in the Bertie County D.A.'s office. Because of the conflict of interest created by Gell's former lawyer taking a job with the very office prosectuting him, the matter was transferred to the office of then-Attorney General, Mike Easley, and headed up by David Hoke and Debra Graves. Hoke and Graves ignored a 1997 Order to turn over all exculpatory evidence to defense counsel. Disturbingly, these two are <a href="http://pview.findlaw.com/view/2167670_1?noconfirm=0">still with</a> the AG's Special Prosecutions Section, along with Coman and Winstead.<br /><br />Shortly before the commencement of Gell's trial, on February 2, 1998, his fourth lawyer, assigned to the case but three months earlier, read a newspaper article speaking of the existence of witnesses who had seen Jenkins alive as late as April 10, 1995. The attorney, Maynard Harrell, immediately asked the trial judge to order Hoke and Graves to turn over any exculpatory witness statements contained in the prosecutors' files. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/301508.html">Joe Neff</a>:<br /><br /><i>The prosecutors replied that there was none. Some witnesses had said they saw Jenkins after April 3, prosecutor Debra Graves said, but they were mistaken. <br /><br />"Ransome talked to those witnesses a number of times, and the dates change from time to time," Graves said. "There was nothing exculpatory about that information, and consequently we did not provide it."<br /><br />At Judge Meyer's insistence, however, prosecutors handed over statements by 10 people. <br /><br />All had been re-interviewed after April 3 had been established as the date of death, Meyer said, and all said they were unsure when they last saw Jenkins.<br /><br />But "out of an abundance of caution," Meyer let the defense lawyers read the statements. <br /><br />So on the first day of trial, the state finally gave Gell's lawyers reports of people who said they saw Jenkins alive after April 3. <br /><br />But only some. All but one of the statements were from people whom Police Chief Godwin and SBI agent Ransome had re-interviewed after telling them Jenkins was killed April 3.<br /><br />Like all defendants, Gell had the constitutional right to evidence in law enforcement files that could prove his innocence or cast doubt on the truthfulness of witnesses such as Crystal and Shanna. <br /><br />Whether intentionally or inadvertently, the prosecution team did not turn over the statements of Donald Hale, Jenkins' lifelong friend who said he chatted with him April 7. They also did not provide the account of Willie Hoggard, his across-the-street neighbor who said he saw him that same day; and that of Ricky Alan Odom, who told police he talked with Jenkins about roofing his home on April 7; and that of Jenkins' brother Sidney, who said he had honked at him in town on April 8; and Edward and Margaret Adams, who saw him April 9.<br /><br />The state did not hand over the tape recording of a phone call involving Crystal Morris, the state's key witness -- a conversation with evidence that Crystal was fabricating her account of the murder. And the state didn't turn over its numerous reports of Jenkins' interest in young girls and payments for sex.<br /><br />The late production of the witness reports put Harrell at a disadvantage. The trial had begun, and the lawyers were in court all day, with little time to chase down people who might help their case.</i><br /><br />On February 25th, the jury took less than one hour to convict Alan Gell of first degree murder.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/301508.html">Neff</a>:<br /><br /><i>During the sentencing phase, Harrell put Gell's family and friends on the stand. Pleas for mercy, however, are best accompanied by remorse, and Gell continued to maintain his innocence. <br /><br />Prosecutor David Hoke called for death in a powerful closing argument that was more sermon than summation. He hammered at Gell for ambushing Jenkins in the sanctity of his own home. <br /><br />Hoke reminded jurors of the words of Gell's pastor, who testified that Gell had never acknowledged wrongdoing or shown remorse.<br /><br />Gell interrupted Hoke. "I still deny the charges," he blurted out. <br /><br />This gave more fuel to Hoke, who asked jurors to think about how important it was for them to feel safe in their own homes. <br /><br />"Look at that feeling of peace, joy, comfort in your own home," he said. Contrast it to the act done "at the hands of this man who has not yet acknowledged any sorrow."<br /><br />He addressed the jury, calling each member by name, and then: <br /><br />"From the Old Testament and the Book of Numbers, anyone who kills a person is to be put to death as a murderer upon the testimony of witnesses. You've heard the testimony of witnesses. ... Now, they might argue to you the New Testament changes all that. No, it doesn't. Jesus didn't come to destroy the law or the prophecies of the Old Testament. He came to fulfill them. <br /><br />"Listen to this in Deuteronomy. 'Cursed is the man who kills his neighbor secretly and all the people shall say amen. Cursed is the man who kills an innocent person for money, and all the people shall say amen.' It's time to sentence this man, a murderer, to die, and let the people of Bertie County say amen."<br /><br />The jury needed just two hours to reach a conclusion: death.</i><br /><br />As ironically noted by <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/318665.html">Mr. Neff</a>, "getting sentenced to death was a lucky break for Alan Gell."<br /><br />As a death row convict, Gell became entitled to two attorneys, paid by the state, to review the entire case -- both the conduct of the trial and the conduct of police and prosecutorial authority in building the investigation and the case against him. Enter Mary Pollard and Jim Cooney. To make this long, tortured story just a bit shorter, suffice to say that Pollard and Cooney undertook the admirable leg work work not even contemplated by any of Alan's prior counsel. <br /><br />Pollard immediately realized that the date of death was the crucial issue in the case. She contacted Dr. M.G.F. Gilliland, the forensic pathologist who had testified for the prosecution at trial that Jenkins' was killed in a loosely framed window between April 3-8, 1995. Gilliland's testimony was, obviously, a linchpin on which the jury hung its hat in deciding the guilt of Alan Gell. Because ambient temperature, more than any other factor, determines the rate at which a corpse decomposes, and because there was no data given to her regarding the temperature of Jenkins' home in the time between his murder and the discovery of his body, Gilliland told Pollard that she could not more precisely estimate the date of his demise. <br /><br />Pollard and Conney set out to get that data. A forensic anthropologist, mechanical engineer, and entomologist were retained. Their conjunctive work, which is nicely, if grisly, summarized by Mr. Neff, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/318665.html">here</a>, led to the conclusion that Jenkins was killed on either April 8, 9 or 10, 1995. The assumption, accepted by the trial jury, that he was killed on April 3, 1995, was "so unreasonable as to be nearly impossible."<br /><br />Pollard and Cooney took their experts' test results and conclusions back to Gilliland. <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/210/story/318665.html">Mr. Neff</a>:<br /><br /><i>For two decades, Gilliland, like Marks and Arends, has worked with the state, helping police and prosecutors. She still has the intensity and focus that cowed Gell's lawyers during trial. But now, in the case of N.C. v. Gell, she is no longer focused on the defense lawyers. <br /><br />Sitting in her office recently at Pitt Memorial Hospital, surrounded by books, papers, microscopes and files, Gilliland recalled a pretrial conference in January 1998. The prosecution team was there: SBI agent Dwight Ransome, Aulander Police Chief Gordon Godwin, and David Hoke and Debra Graves from the Attorney General's Office.<br /><br />Gilliland asked about the initial medical examiner's report, which noted that Jenkins was last seen alive on midmorning April 8 by a neighbor.<br /><br />That person was mistaken, one of the team members said. <br /><br />"That information had been withdrawn," recalled Gilliland.<br /><br />Gilliland said she assumed this meant that the neighbor -- one neighbor -- had retracted the statement.<br /><br />That assumption was demolished when Gilliland met with Gell's lawyers.<br /><br />She learned that law enforcement had statements from 17 people who saw Jenkins alive after April 3 but had not shared that information with her. <br /><br />"Seventeen people, that's a clue, that's valuable information," she said. "I would rely on that kind of information."<br /><br />Gilliland has reviewed the work of Arends, the entomologist, and Marks, of the Body Farm. She is in full agreement with them about Jenkins' time of death.<br /><br />She rifled briskly through her file folder, extracting some of the withheld statements. <br /><br />She held up the one from Willie Hoggard, the across-the-street neighbor.<br /><br />"He lived there 25 years, and he saw [Jenkins] in his truck, and he knows the man very well; he last saw him on the Friday, which is the seventh," she said, rattling the paper. "He's alive on the seventh; he's not decomposing in his house."<br /><br />She moved on to the statement of Ricky Alan Odom, who told police he talked with Jenkins that same day about putting a roof on his house.<br /><br />"A job, the man says, he looks at the roof on the seventh," Gilliland said. "That is not having maggots working on your remains."<br /><br />Gilliland did not attend the trial and did not hear Crystal Morris testify that Gell stood in the bedroom and shot Jenkins in the hallway.<br /><br />"No, no, no!" Clearly, she said, the killer shot from the hallway into the bedroom.<br /><br />Crystal Morris "may have intimate knowledge of who was shooting," Gilliland said. "It may have been herself. It could have been somebody else, I don't know -- that's not something that I have information about. But with all of this together, I have better information to when it happened and when it did not happen. <br /><br />"It did not happen April 3, 1995."<br /><br />Gilliland is rock certain: The murder occurred while Gell was in jail, probably on April 8 or 9. <br /><br />"That doesn't mean that poor Mr. Jenkins wasn't killed. It just means that this man didn't do it."</i><br /><br />Once the Attorney General's Office was made aware of this frame, and the prosecutorial misconduct of Hoke and Graves, it immediately moved the court to set aside the guilty verdict and free Alan Gell, right? <br /><br />Um, no. <em>After a thorough reinvestigation, Jim Coman advised Cooper that the matter should be tried</em> <i>again!</i> Coman tried the case himself. He lost. Joe Cheshire sat first chair for Alan Gell at the re-trial. He was assisted by Jim Cooney, Mary Pollard and Brad Bannon.<br /><br />Hoke and Graves were ultimately tried by the Grievance Committee of the State Bar for their egregious prosecutorial misconduct in the failure to timely provide Mr. Gell's original defense counsel with exculpatory <i>Brady</i> material to which they were absolutely entitled -- conduct that directly resulted in Mr. Gell's wrongful conviction and near execution. In my next post I am going to set forth, in its entirety, Mr. Bannon's letter to the the State Bar regarding his observations of that proceeding. It is a must read. Apparently, this "trial" was nothing but a smoke-filled room, a pig circus, an "old boy" JOKE.<br /><br />Jim Coman testified on behalf of his office mates at the Bar "trial." Under oath, he <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/208/story/249929.html">said</a>, in direct contravention of precedent settled since 1972, that his pals weren't obligated to turn over impeachment evidence to the defense. (See, Hoke and Graves decided to deem the taped phone call of Crystal Morris, wherein she implicated herself and spoke of the need to frame Gell, merely "impeachment" material, as opposed to "exculpatory"material, because, while it might have "embarrassed" poor Ms. Morris, it did not directly prove Gell's innocence. Kinda like the Nifong-Meehan conspiracy. But different. Snakes, just the same.) <br /><br /><i>In September, the state's senior prosecutor was in an unusual place: the witness stand. And what he said has caused quite a stir among lawyers around the state.<br />Jim Coman said under oath that the state Attorney General's Office had a policy of withholding a certain type of evidence helpful to defendants. As he described it, the policy would violate 30 years of U.S. Supreme Court rulings.<br /><br />Coman now says, however, that his testimony was incorrect. Even so, one prominent law professor said that the prosecutor's September statements may open the door to challenges of numerous convictions in cases tried by the attorney general's staff.<br /><br />Coman was testifying at the State Bar about the character of two proteges, David Hoke and Debra Graves. They were charged with breaking ethical rules by withholding favorable evidence from former death row inmate Alan Gell. The evidence included a taped telephone call in which the state's star witness said she had to "make up a story" for police.<br /><br />Hoke and Graves didn't have to turn over the tape, Coman said, because it wasn't "exculpatory"; it didn't prove Gell's innocence.<br /><br />The tape could have been used to "impeach" the witness, or undercut her credibility, Coman acknowledged. But he said case law didn't require impeachment evidence to be turned over to the defense.<br /><br />Handing over impeachment evidence has been law since a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court decision. But Coman went on to say it wasn't just his opinion, it was the policy of the Attorney General's Office.<br /><br />An odd policy<br /><br />"The prevailing view when I was there the first time, both under Judge [Lacy] Thornburg and Attorney General [Mike] Easley and now Governor Easley," Coman said, "was that just because something embarrassed a witness or might be impeaching to them, did not in and of itself, unless it went to being exculpatory, was not something we had to turn over."<br /><br />In a recent interview, however, Coman backed away from that description of policy and said his September statements were not correct -- not on the case law, and not on the attorney general's policy.<br /><br />"I was not very precise," he said. "My use of the term 'impeaching' or 'impeachment' ... would have not been accurate."<br /><br />It's impossible to know how many times the Attorney General's Office has failed to turn over impeachment evidence, because the material would be in closed files. Coman and Attorney General Roy Cooper said that the department's policy was to obey the law, and that there was no written policy on impeachment evidence.<br /><br />But in several known cases, lawyers for the attorney general did not hand over impeachment evidence or resisted opening files as the law required:<br /><br />* In 1993, Hoke, the lead prosecutor in Gell's 1998 trial, was admonished by a trial judge for not turning over impeachment evidence at a murder trial. Hoke told the judge he didn't turn it over because it was "impeachment evidence, not exculpatory evidence."<br /><br />Questioned by the State Bar under oath, Hoke testified that leading up to Gell's first trial, he thought the tape was impeaching. He did not hand over the tape, he said, because he didn't know impeachment evidence must be produced, despite the previous courtroom lecture.<br /><br />* While Gell was on death row, the attorney general continued to fight his bid for a new trial long after the withheld evidence surfaced. Those claims of withheld evidence had no merit, the attorney general argued, and Gell should proceed to execution.<br /><br />* Charles Munsey got off death row in 1999 because the Wilkes County prosecutor withheld impeachment evidence that the state's star witness, a jailhouse informant, was never in Central Prison, where Munsey supposedly confessed to him.<br /><br />During the trial, a deputy attorney general, Dale Talbert, advised the local prosecutor that prison officials said it was nearly impossible for the witness to have been in Central. Talbert told the local district attorney that the prison officials said it was virtually impossible that he was at Central because there was no record showing that.<br /><br />* From 1996 to 1998, the Attorney General's Office vehemently fought a new law giving death row inmates access to the complete case files of prosecutors and police. Special Deputy Attorney General Barry McNeill -- the state's leading death-penalty lawyer -- said at a statewide meeting of prosecutors that there was no need to open all law enforcement files, and that his office would help prosecutors ward off attempts to do so.<br /><br />The state Supreme Court upheld the law, leading to new trials for at least six death row inmates.<br /><br />Bad news for AG?<br /><br />Rich Rosen, a law professor at UNC-Chapel Hill and a death-penalty opponent, predicted that Coman's testimony would cause trouble for the Attorney General's Office. "We've got a statement under oath," Rosen said. "I think anyone prosecuted by them in the last 20 years has a right to ask to reopen their files."<br /><br />Beginning in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that prosecutors must hand over evidence that is favorable to defendants. That first decision involved evidence of the defendant's innocence. Later decisions included impeachment evidence.<br /><br />Gell was convicted in 1998 of murdering a retired truck driver in Bertie County. The withheld evidence led to a new trial; in February a jury quickly acquitted him.<br /><br />Among other evidence, prosecutors withheld the taped phone conversation, in which the state's alleged eyewitness to the murder talked about how she had to "make up a story" for police, evidence that she was prone to lie to law enforcement.<br /><br />A formidable witness<br /><br />Once Gell won a new trial, Coman became deeply familiar with the case. He led the reinvestigation and advised Attorney General Roy Cooper to retry Gell. He was the lead prosecutor at the retrial.<br /><br />When Hoke and Graves were first investigated for misconduct, Coman filed a sworn affidavit with the State Bar in support of them. In that written statement, he said he wouldn't have given the evidence to the defense, either.<br /><br />Coman was a formidable witness: a career prosecutor, former head of the State Bureau of Investigation and the state's senior deputy attorney general for law enforcement and prosecutions.<br /><br />Hoke and Graves were reprimanded for withholding the evidence and bringing the judicial system into disrepute.<br /><br />Coman said he was using the word "impeaching" as "embarrassing." The legal definition of impeach is the same as in Webster's dictionary: "to discredit."<br /><br />Coman said he was thinking about how the tape from the Gell trial was embarrassing and humiliating for the state's witnesses.<br /><br />"I wasn't thinking in terms of how it was defined in the case law," Coman said. "I was thinking only in terms of this transcript, this tape, and that it portrayed the girls in an embarrassing, humiliating position."<br /><br />Coman's testimony, and Hoke's, will likely be fodder for the special State Bar committee set up to review the Hoke and Graves matter.<br /><br />The N.C. Academy of Trial Lawyers labeled their testimony "misleading" and a "blanket misstatement" of the law. Brad Bannon, one of Gell's lawyers at his retrial, wrote that Coman and Hoke gave a patently false recitation of the law as a defense for the prosecutors' misconduct.<br /><br />Gov. Mike Easley was attorney general from 1993 to 2001, when his staff tried and convicted Gell. He declined to be interviewed. So did Lacy Thornburg, who was attorney general from 1985 to 1993 and is now a federal judge in Asheville.<br /><br />Coman said the Gell case is the only one in his 20 years at the Attorney General's Office where evidence was not handed over as required.<br /><br />Roy Cooper, who currently holds the office, said he has insisted on a very open policy.<br /><br />"Attorneys have been instructed to be as open as possible and turn over as much evidence as possible to the defense," Cooper said. "It is in the best interest of a fair trial and helps criminals from getting guilty verdicts overturned."<br /><br />Cooper said his lawyers would review cases prosecuted by the Attorney General's Office before his term only if challenged in court. He said his staff had no intention of independently going through files to see whether impeachment evidence had been withheld.</i> <br /><br />Poster "KP" had this to say about Coman today, at <a href="http://z10.invisionfree.com/FODU_Open_Board/index.php?showtopic=1&view=findpost&p=11148161">FODU</a>:<br /><br /><i>I just heard who they have picked to handle the case. One of the two AAG's I have spoken with and he is not a fan of the defense team and he made that pertectly clear to me in a call that lasted for more than an hour twenty, back on Sept 22.<br /><br />I filed a complaint with them back on Sept 21, 2006 and they called me back on the 22. I still have his number on my cell phone at home. The only lawyer he didn't talk about was Mr. Smith for fear of being sued. It looks like we are not going anywhere, anytime soon. <br /><br />By the way the AAG I'm speaking of is James Coman. </i><br /><br />***<br /><br />Mary Winstead, Coman's assistant on the Duke Frame assignment, <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/09/ed-bradleys-cue-cards-redux.html">used to work with Mikey</a> at the Durham County D.A.'s office. In the course of her prosecution of one Timothy Malloy for a 1992 rape, Winstead "accidentally" voiced over portions of not one, but <i>two</i> casette tapes bearing recordings of telephone answering machine messages crucial to Mr. Malloy's defense, some time in the year and a half between their creation and pre-trial discovery, during which time the tapes were in the exclusive possession of the state. She was removed from the case. Mikey tried it. Without those pesky audio tapes. <br /><br />***<br /><br />Roy, buddy, you may have blinders on.<br /><br />We don't.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-18202366237984183512007-01-11T19:10:00.000-05:002007-01-11T22:36:14.072-05:00I Have To Laugh!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/ihavetolaugh.jpg?t=1168560846"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/ihavetolaugh.jpg?t=1168560846" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In a 10:12 p.m. comment to <a href="http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/09/duke-lacrosse-two-takes-on-nifongs.html#115889113586506835">this</a> JinC post back in September, I loosely explained the trial lawyer's tactic of "shotgunning." The shotgun approach to evidentiary presentation is a revered old friend of crafty litigators possessed of formidable advocacy skills...and an atrociously weak case. Done well, shotgunning is art. The ultimate art of deception. After all, if you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. Here, I speak not of brilliant intellect, but the brilliance of truth. <br /><br />Another axiom of trial practice is that, "Good cases makes good lawyers." Indeed, it is <span style="font-style:italic;">expected</span> that an advocate armed with the strength of dispositive facts will be able to shoot them, with scoped rifle precision, to score "bullseyes" at verdict. By natural extension, it is also said that, "Winning weak cases makes great lawyers." <br /><br />I'm sure that Defendant Nifong has developed capable courtroom skills during his twenty eight years toiling in the bowels of Durham. I'm also sure that he knew early on, clearly by April 10th, that the alleged "Duke Rape case" was atrociously weak. In fact, he knew then that the accuser was wholly incredible, that there was no favorable disinterested eyewitness, that the scientific and forensic evidence wasn't there, and that this case was all but un-winnable. All but un-winnable but for that particularly nasty shotgun pellet called "Race Bait." See, Defendant Nifong fancied himself a <span style="font-style:italic;">great</span> trial attorney, the proverbial cock o' the walk. Armed with a narcissistic, borderline personality disorder and the complicity of Hometown Players Titus and Stephens, Defendant Nifong was positive that he would be able to pull it off. He thought he'd simply shotgun his way through the gauntlet of discovery. He'd shotgun his way through a jury selection at which he'd seat as many of Durham County's stupidest, most hate-filled, pitchfork wielding racist Whiners as he could. Then he'd shotgun his way through trial, and blow up the target bearing Dave's, Reade's, and Collin's faces at its center. The other thing I'm sure of, however, is that Defendant Nifong had absolutely no idea just whom he had decided to fuck with, nor the strength of their resolve. <br /><br />Defendant Nifong, you're not in Durham any more. Not the Durham you've known, anyway. No quick and dirty dispositions with the likes of Bourlon and Monks and <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/10/hey-smart-people-check-out-this-idiot.html">L.R. "Lee" Castle</a> today, tough guy. No more Ronnie and Kenny to guard your six. You're in the big time, now, Douche. You're bad! You're <span style="font-style:italic;">Nation-wide!</span> Hell, you're big in Japan.<br /><br />Which is why I have to <a href="http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3">laugh</a>. <br /><br />You actually thought you could shotgun your way through the Seligmanns? The Finnertys? The Evans's? Thought you'd blow away <i>this</i> team of defense attorneys, support staff and investigators? You really do seem to be certifiably insane. Too <a href="http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3">funny</a>.<br /><br />I'm sure you've read the defendants' <a href="http://www.wral.com/news/local/flash/1133681/">latest motion</a>. I bet you're re-reading it with Linwood right now. Isn't it is a thing of beauty? That, Defendant Nifong, is good lawyering. I hesitate to call it great, what with you and <a href="http://www.wral.com/news/local/flash/1133779/">Crystal and Linwood</a> all but handing them your heads on a silver platter. This shotgun approach, Defendant Nifong, is not art. In fact, I am struck by sudden mind's eye loop of the classic scene from <i>The Odd Couple</i>, in which a crestfallen, apron wearing Felix (Jack Lemon) bemoans Oscar's (Walter Matthau) lack of appreciation and culinary ignorance: <br /><br />Felix: It's not spaghetti. It's linguini.<br />Oscar: Linguini? <br />Felix: Ha! You didn't even know that's linguini! It's not spaghetti. It's linguini!<br />Oscar: Linguini? [Throwing plate of linguini against the kitchen wall, where it momentarily sticks before starting its inexorable ooze to the floor]<br /><b>Now it's <i>garbage!</i></b> <br /> <br />Oh, how my wife <a href="http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3">laughed</a> when she read this<br /><br /><i>While the accuser now claims that “Adam” and “Matt” were both of the names used by Reade Seligmann, she provided vastly different descriptions for “Matt” and “Adam” on March 16: “Matt was heavy set with short hair and weighs 260lbs to 270lbs while “Adam” was “short, red cheeks, fluffy hair, stubby face with brown hair. Significantly, she also described “Brett” as “chubby” and claims that she saw a picture of him in the house. Similarly she now claims that Dave Evans is “Adam” and “Brett,” even though she gave two different descriptions for Adam and Brett on March 16. In short, the accuser has provided three different descriptions for what she now claims are only two men. Of course, if the SANE interview was truthful, then Dave Evans (as “Dan” who is really “Matt”) is “Matt,” “Adam,” and “Brett,” which means that the accuser has given three different descriptions for the same person . . . [and] if the accuser’s December 21 statement is to be believed, then “Dan” and “Brett” are the same person; yet in her written statement of April 6, she claimed that she was beaten by both Dan and Brett, and never informed police that it was the same person.</i><br /><br />and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>this</a><br /><br /><i>According to the accuser’s most recent telling, she apparently spoke with someone at her father’s home for 7 minutes during the time that she was planning her nude dance routine, during the time that she was dancing, and then as she was fleeing to the car. In addition, the accuser was apparently talking with someone on her cell phone at the time that she was walking back into the house and being “kidnapped” into the bathroom. She finished her last conversation at the time the rape was beginning. None of these facts has ever been mentioned in any statement that the accuser has given to date in this case . . . [while] at the height of the sexual attack now claimed by the accuser, Reade Seligmann was having a telephone conversation.</i><br /><br />and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>this</a><br /><br /><i>Since Dave Evans had a “5 o’clock shadow” in the picture the accuser was shown on April 4, and since her response was that he “looks like him without the mustache,” her claim now that a “mustache” is not a “mustache” indicates that her statement on April 4 is, again, no longer reliable.</i><br /><br />and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>this</a><br /><br /><i>To believe the accuser’s present claim that her vagina was wiped with this towel, that her face was wiped with this towel, that Dave Evans was wiped with this towel, and that the floor was wiped with this towel, would require the belief that this towel could wipe away all DNA from her attackers on the accuser’s body, but leave the DNA of other, unknown males. It further requires the belief that the accuser’s face and vagina could be wiped with this towel, but leave no trace of her DNA on the towel. Further, it requires the belief that the floor could be wiped with this towel, but that it would only wipe Dave Evans’ DNA, leaving Matt Zash’s DNA behind on the floor. Finally, the towel, while apparently obliterating any DNA left behind by the alleged attackers on the accuser’s body, somehow contained only one of her attackers’ DNA, despite her multiple claims that two of her attackers penetrated her rectum and vagina with their penises.</i><br /><br />and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>this</a><br /><br /><i>Since, at this point in time, Dave Evans can be one, two, three or even four different attackers, Reade Seligman can be one or two different attackers—and Collin Finnerty is an unidentified attacker—the accuser is now free to say that any of the Defendants did any act or all of the acts that she claims happened without regard to her previous statements or interviews. In short, by claiming that any one of the Defendants could be any or all of her attackers, the accuser has now created the equivalent of a “do over” in an attempt to try to make sense of her prior conflicting statements.</i><br /><br />and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>this</a><br /><br /><i>Rather than attempt to identify her attackers as Matt, Brett and Adam, the accuser used the names of the Defendants in her most recent telling of her story. Specifically, the investigator noted that ‘Inv. Wilson asked [the accuser] to tell him whose names the guys were using on March 13, 2006 since she knows their real names.’ The State has repeatedly represented to this Court that no substantive discussions of this case took place with the accuser from April 6, 2006 until this last interview. The fact that the accuser now “knows their real names” indicates that she has learned their names from the extensive publicity that this case has received, publicity that has necessarily included the Defendants’ faces as well as their names. It cannot be known at this time with any reliability what else she has learned from this publicity. This, in turn, means that the accuser’s present recollection of who allegedly attacked her and how, has been irreparably tainted by this publicity and weighs strongly against any in-court identification by her of the Defendants.</i> <br /><br />and <a href="http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3">this</a> hilarious little nugget of "oops" that slapped <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2007/01/mystery-of-missing-shoe-solved.html">Liestoppers</a> in their collective faces. Don't you know about strippers, dude? It's all about the shoes.<br /><br />Oh, how we <a href="http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3">laughed</a> when we read <a href="http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?showtopic=1412&view=findpost&p=7387788">this</a><br /><br /><i>Was it a penis, or . . . “object”?<br /><br />“I couldn’t say 100% that I saw them use their penis but it was certainly something.” LW 12/21/06 notes at 4.<br />“I believe it was their penis.” Id.<br />“It felt like a penis.” Id.<br />It penetrated me vaginally. [1]<br />It penetrated my butt. [2]<br />It did not use a condom. [3]<br />It raped me. [4]<br />It had sex with me for about two minutes in my vagina. [5]<br />It got frustrated because it couldn’t come. [5]<br />It had sex with me for 5 minutes. [6]<br />It then went into my anus for 2 minutes. [6]<br />I think it ejaculated. [7]<br /><br />But was it a penis???<br />Alas, “I can’t say 100% that it was a penis that was used….” LW 12/21/06 notes at 4.<br /><br /><br />FOOTNOTES<br />(1) Collin Finnerty "is the guy who assaulted me . . . . He put his penis in my anus and my vagina." Transcript of April 4 Powerpoint Identification, 1/11/07 Motion at 11 (Discovery at 1838). "At that point Matt then moved around to her front side where he penetrated her vagina.” Gottlieb Notes, 1/11/07 Motion at 11 (Discovery at 1817). "Matt had her legs and Brett was behind her and put his private part in her anus and in her vagina. . . . ." Himan's Interview, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 1208).<br /><br />(2) “That’s when Adam came around back and put his private part in my butt." Sane Interview, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 539).<br /><br />(3) “Adam said yes you can and then that was [when] Matt put his private part in me and did not use a condom." Sane Interview 1/11/07 Motion at 11 (Discovery at 538).<br /><br />(4) “She stated that Brett was behind her and was the first to sodomize and then to rape her. She stated that Brett ejaculated . . . ." Gottlieb's Interview, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 1817).<br /><br />(5) "Matt started having sex with me in my vagina and he got frustrated because he said he couldn't come, He [sic] had sex with me for about 2 minutes in my vagina. . . ." Accuser's Handwritten Statement, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 810).<br /><br />(6) “Brett had sex with me in my vagina he stopped after about 5 minutes, then he put his penis in my anus for about 2 minutes." Accuser's Handwritten Statement, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 810). <br /><br />(7) "Matt had her legs and Brett was behind her and put his private part in her anus and in her vagina. She stated that she thinks he ejaculated . . . ." Himan's Interview, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 1208). “She stated that Brett was behind her and was the first to sodomize and then to rape her. She stated that Brett ejaculated . . . ." Gottlieb's Interview, 1/11/07 Motion at 12 (Discovery at 1817).<br /></i><br /><br />We both just <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>laughed </a> and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>laughed</a>. As I sat on the couch staring at her back as she read and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>laughed </a>, she turned over her shoulder and said, "This sounds like a bad Woody Allen screenplay." And, hoo, boy, when we considered just how you'd feel being likened to <i>Woody Allen</i>, did we ever <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>laugh </a> and <a href=""http://www.e-subversive.net/soundboards/soundboards_files/sounds/laughter2.mp3>laugh </a> all the harder.<br /><br />Then, we read <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/11/60minutes/main2352512.shtml">this</a><br /><br /><i>Meehan says writing an incomplete report violates his own firm's standards. "It was an error in judgment on my part. … It certainly was a big error," says Meehan. He says his firm wasn't trying to hide the information and that it released it when it was asked. But his client's behavior irks him, he says. <br /><br />Nifong took six months to tell the players' defense attorneys about the other DNA, as required by law — and during that time, Nifong filed a court motion that stated he was not aware of any potentially exculpatory evidence. <br /><br />The fact that Nifong withheld the information and knew it before he indicted their sons has outraged the parents of the accused. "You felt like someone hit you with a baseball bat. … It was almost too much to bear, as we sat there," says Kathy Seligmann, whose son, Reade, is among the three indicted players. "And [Nifong is] sitting 10 feet away from us." <br /><br />It enraged Mary Ellen Finnerty, mother of Collin Finnerty, another indicted player. "I think [I felt] one of the strongest feelings of rage that I've had … I literally had to turn to my husband, because I was shaking from my head to my toe, and say, 'Hold me down,'" recalls Finnerty. Adds Seligmann, "And we had to hold on to each other because when you sit there and put two and two together and realize that it was calculated … set up to make these boys appear to be guilty of something they didn't do"</i><br /><br />and stopped laughing.<br /><br />Thankfully, Mrs. Evans' immediately following quote brought smiles back to our faces:<br /><br /><i>When asked what they would say to Nifong if he were in the room, Rae Evans, the mother of indicted player David Evans, says, "I would say with a smile on my face, 'Mr. Nifong, you've picked on the wrong families … and you will pay every day for the rest of your life.'"</i><br /><br />May you both rot in hell.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-8072147938755880472007-01-02T20:17:00.000-05:002007-01-03T01:14:38.452-05:00Ham Sandwich Indicts Nifong<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/theindictments.jpg?t=1167787453"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/theindictments.jpg?t=1167787453" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Last Friday, Mary Katharine Ham released the wickedly ironic and darkly humorous <a href="http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/e9ac3639-fd74-4bfe-bd55-506db5efc826">Tour Of Things That Did Not Happen In Durham</a>. Actually a "HamNation" production, drawing upon the talents of her mom, dad, and brothers, this short (2:58) satire is must viewing for Andrew Cohen and the other two extra-terrestrials yet in need of a "Talk To Me Like I'm Three Years Old" tutorial of non-events in Durham over the last ten months. <br /><br />Today, dad Jon Ham, who's been chiming in with pithy Hoax-Frame commentary for some time now, grabbed the family camcorder in the hope of memorializing Defendant Mike Nifong standing, chest out, chin square, hand raised in Boy Scout salute, while swearing to uphold the laws of the State of North Carolina and the Constitution of the United States. Alas, Jon was deprived of the opportunity to record the historic moment, as was the rest of the media and the public at large, because, as Defendant Nifong <a href="http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?showtopic=1176&st=0&#entry7201022">explained</a>, "I scheduled it at 8:00 knowing full well the courthouse opened at 8:30." <br /><br />Captain Bill Wrenn, of the Durham County Sheriff's Department, told a WDTV reporter that he had been told "no" when he had asked if he should let people into the building in advance of the historic <s>farce</s> <s>sham</s> <s>puke-inducement</s> <s>travesty</s> <s>tragedy</s> swearing-in ceremony. Asked who had told him "no," Captain Wrenn replied, "I asked Mr. Nifong."<br /><br />Defendant Nifong was finally found, not in his 6th Floor office hard at work fighting crime, but, sitting in a 5th Floor courtroom flanked by his <s>mommy</s> wife, the Stepfordian Cy Gurney, and mortified son, Bryan. Jon was able to get <a href="http://triangle.johnlocke.org/blog/?p=274">this</a> absolutely mesmerizing video of Defendant Nifong under siege from a clearly agitated press corps. "Mesmerizing" in that sort of way one might become rapt on starting to look at a jungle disease book. You get sicker as you go along but you can't stop. <br /><br />Gone was the trademark cocksure smirk. Defendant Nifong appeared dispassionate, subdued, anesthetized. He can still think up a lie, though, and think it up quick. Pressed as to why the media and public were not permitted to witness the swearing in of a public official, Defendant Nifong explained that <br /><br />"there are ceremonial ceremonies, and then there are 'let's do this so <em>we</em> can get to work' ceremonies...because <em>we</em> had to be at work at 8:30...As I've indicated, you know, there's ceremonial ceremonies such as the one <em>we</em> had when I was appointed to this office back in 2005 but, now what <em>we</em> have is an office with <em>twenty-one lawyers, all of whom have previously been sworn in, so the ceremonies are over. We have to get sworn in so we can get back to work</em>...this was not a media event; this was an event that was required of <em>us</em> so that <em>we</em> could get back to work and do <em>our</em> jobs." <br /><br />Just chew on that for a while. Go ahead. Take your time. It tastes real bad and you just can't swallow it. Poor Mike. Poor Cy. Poor Bryan. What should have been the crowning moment of his career became but an embarrassing "necessity" that he had to lie about. Foisting yet another public deception off on his poor staff. Sick. Explain to us again the relevance of the other twenty one previously sworn lawyers in your office, working on the floor above, whose need to get to work necessitated the closure to the public of a fifth floor courtroom. Please, do explain that again. This guy has "truly gone fishing." <br /><br />Scarily, Defendant Nifong affirmed that he is looking forward to what he "can do next," feigned pride in <em>"a lot of good that has been accomplished in the eighteen, 20 months since I've been the District Attorney here," </em> and vowed "to do a whole lot more." <br /><br /><a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/dumbpeople.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/dumbpeople.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Bloggers beware: He WILL spit on your burgers.<br /><br />Defendant Nifong then went fully Queeg, and displayed the true depth of his psychotic, delusional, borderline personality disorder with narcissistic overlay:<br /><br />"Obviously, as witnessed by the fact that you're all here talking to me, <em>when there's so much other stuff going on</em>, is...<em>Durham has some healing to do and I need to be a part of that healing process and I need to have something to do with what, how, how, we move forward from the events that have brought you all here </em> because you're not here today for a swearing-in, <em>you're here today because of the things that happened during the course of the last year.</em>" [Poor Bryan chewed gum tensely and appeared to stare at his shoetips as Dear Ol' Dad loosed this rancid stream.] <br /><br />Asked if he felt he was a part of the problem in Durham, Defendant Nifong continued:<br /><br />"No, I don't think I'm part of the problem. I feel I have <em>assisted in revealing the problem</em>, um, and, you know, <em>if we get to the point where it appears </em> my presence, um, in an investigation or, and so on, in, in anything like that is a hindrance, then we can deal with that at that time."<br /><br /><i>Craaaaaazy! <br />Over the rainbow, <br />He is craaaaazy! <br />Bars in the windows.</i><br /><br />The time is now, Defendant Nifong. Where are the Feds? Get him out of there. <br /><br />The best scene of Jon's video is its last. As a reporter smugly, or timidly, I'm not sure which, offers, "Sorry, Mrs. Nifong," Defendant "Elvis" leaves the building and the camera lens swings towards the front of the courtroom. For the first time it is revealed that, even as his destruction is being forever recorded for Bryan's future therapists, Defendant Nifong still maintains an odd Svengalian hold over the administration of justice in Durham. Four judges stand in the well, appearing to be awaiting their own swear-ins, as Senior Justice Orlando Hudson sits, silently waiting, on the bench. WTF?<br /><br />Truly, cinema of the absurd.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com59tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-61804830406384572982006-12-29T07:53:00.000-05:002006-12-29T08:00:25.958-05:00An Open Letter To Michael Nifong<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/bill.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/bill.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson161.html">Bill Anderson</a>:<br /><br />Hello, Mike. Had I written this open letter last summer, I doubt you would have heard of me, but my sources in Durham (and they are good sources, Mike) tell me that I pretty much am on your enemies list. I’m glad I could accomplish that feat, but from what I can tell, that list is getting longer while we speak.<br /><br />However, in this letter, I come to you in peace. I’m offering you advice, good advice, I might add, and if I were you, I would take it. Don’t get me wrong. I really hope that you not only lose your law license and your job, but since you were trying to take away the lives of three young men who had committed no crimes, I do hope that you have the opportunity to do a stretch in prison, or at least have to face that horrifying prospect. After all, there are people in this country who belong behind bars, and you are one of them.<br /><br />But even though I want you to go to prison, I am going to offer you advice that I think very well not only could keep you out of what Lew Rockwell calls the crowbar motel, but also could save your career. Think about that, Mike. I am trying to help you keep your law license, your freedom, and maybe even your job, so you need to listen to me.<br /><br />The first and most important thing is that you need to drop the kidnapping and sexual assault charges against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans. I mean drop the charges the way that Duke University receivers drop passes at crucial times during a close football game. Those charges need to disappear, and fast, for if you insist on pushing them forward, it only will get worse for you.<br /><br />As I give you this advice, let me caution you not to listen to people like Wendy Murphy. She has been on television championing your cause, and wrote this abomination of an <a href="http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/12/opposing_view_j.html">op-ed for USA Today</a> that declared your dropping the rape charges, but keeping the others, to be a "brilliant move." Trust me, Mike; you don’t want Murphy being your only cheerleader, for I can give you a list of law-abiding and respectable people who would refuse to spit on her grave only because they hate standing in long lines.<br /><br />No, listen to me. Dropping those charges leads to my second point. For the past nine months, you have been telling the world you had a great case. Last spring, while reading something by your political allies, I saw where you had a "mountain of physical evidence" that pointed toward those three men having committed what the black journalist Cash Michaels called a "brutal rape."<br /><br />As you know, that mountain never was on your side; it was on the other side. My guess is that you had that figured out the minute you spoke to <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/525091.html">Brian Meehan of the DNA lab</a> last April (before you secured the indictments against Reade and Collin), as he gave you the bad news that the only thing DNA was going to do would be to further discredit Crystal and, by definition, your case. <br /><br />That is when you made your biggest mistake. You lied, and then tried to cover the lie, and when you were caught, you gave a litany of excuses that rivals anything John Belushi would have given in one of his movies. Despite Murphy’s contention that you simply were trying to protect the "privacy" of the unindicted lacrosse players, reason tells the rest of us that you were not too worried about protecting people whom you publicly had labeled "hooligans" and "rapists."<br /><br />Mike, I can assure you that Judge W. Osmond Smith III was not taken in by your various excuses that range from "I didn’t know" to "the dog ate my homework" to "no harm, no foul." Maybe another judge might have looked the other way before this case became The Story nationally. When the Los Angeles Times is writing editorials calling for your head on a platter, you have to understand that this no longer is a Durham case. It is a national case, and you cannot stuff that thing back into your little jurisdiction.<br /><br />Thus, literally everything you bring into that courtroom on February 5 is going to undergo scrutiny from every news outlet and every legal analyst in the country, not to mention overseas. Believe me, that is not something you want to happen, as the outright dishonesty of your "evidence" is going to be hung out for the world to see. It is one thing for that to happen in the current arena dominated by writers and talking heads, where nothing official has happened. <br /><br />However, once you put this dreck before a judge, and the court gets to see exactly what your "evidence" really is, you are going to be in much more trouble than you are now. At this moment, you still are guilty only of "bad judgment." If you walk into that courtroom with your witness in tow, your "investigators," and your "medical evidence" (or, better put, your medical non-evidence), at that point you are going to be seen as the D.A. who has perpetrated a fraud. At that point, Mike, you will have openly committed a crime for which will make you vulnerable to spending time in the crowbar motel. That is fraud, Mike, and I am using that term in the legal sense.<br /><br />There is a way out. You can go to the courthouse today – right now, I urge you – and make the following declaration:<br /><br />I am announcing today that I have dropped all charges against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans. There will be no further charges, and no more investigations of the alleged events that occurred on March 13 and 14, 2006.<br /><br />At the time the accuser made the charges, my conversations with police officers led me to believe there had been a rape and sexual assault of the woman in question. As a prosecutor, I was duty-bound to investigate and the information that police gave me was of the type that required me to pursue this case and seek the indictments. <br /><br />However, after further examination of the charges, I no longer can conclude that they are credible, and if I am not sure myself of the credibility of the accusations, by law I cannot further pursue this matter in a court of law. From the start, I have made it clear that this office takes rape allegations seriously, and we will investigate those allegations.<br /><br />I do regret any actions I took which might have appeared to be overzealous, but at no time did I act against the letter or spirit of the law. While I take responsibility for mistakes that I might have made during this episode, let me assure all of you that those mistakes were made in the pursuit of what I thought was a just course of action.<br /><br />Granted, about everything I have written for you is a lie, but since you already have lied repeatedly as an officer of the court, one more lie won’t hurt you, especially since it will have been told in the course of your ending this legal fraud. After all, you did not make the initial rape allegations; it was a woman with a history of drug abuse, prostitution, and mental problems (she was hospitalized in 2005 for those). She was trying to keep from being involuntarily committed to a mental institution when she made the charges, and that hardly was your fault.<br /><br />But if you drop the charges with the above declaration, you have something you can bring to the representatives of the North Carolina Bar Association, who already have summoned you to appear before an investigative body. You can claim you were trying to make sure that a possible rape victim who is black and poor would receive justice. You can claim you were overzealous, but sincere in your actions. <br /><br />(You might even try to repeat some of the acting talent you showed when you demonstrated on national television the alleged choke hold that the accused put on the woman. You sure were convincing when the cameras were on you.)<br /><br />If the members of the legal cartel – I mean, your fellow attorneys of this august body – act within their usual scope of things, you might just get off with a reprimand, provided you have not tried to bring a lying accuser, lying police officers, and anyone else who would be torn apart by defense attorney, into a court of law. If you go that far, you can bet that the authorities will have no choice but to throw you to the wolves. <br /><br />Remember, there are prosecutors in North Carolina who tried to get someone executed, even though they had exculpatory evidence in their possession (which they failed to give to the defense of Alan Gell). They got off with bare reprimands, and both of them are gainfully employed in the law. You might want to speak to David Hoke and Debra Graves about how to grovel in front of the Bar Association investigative committee, so that you, too, can get your free get-out-of-jail card.<br /><br />Above all, Mike the key is dropping these charges now. Take my advice, please. I may not like you, but I believe that it would be best for everyone involved if you were to punt, including you. If you refuse to take my advice and continue this fraud, then people who have some authority over you are going to dismiss the charges, and then they will deal with you. Mike, you have an opportunity to see that this humiliating experience does not happen, and I recommend that you take the proper course of action today.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-4834898234227764532006-12-28T20:49:00.000-05:002006-12-29T11:36:48.550-05:00MICHAEL B. NIFONG, Attorney, Defendant.<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/nifongdisbarred.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/nifongdisbarred.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />Who's got time for reading fiction these days? <br /><br />Read the entire Complaint of the State Bar Disciplinary Hearing Commission, <a href="http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2006/1228062bar1.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Read KC's initial take, <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/complaint.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Read Liestoppers, <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/12/state-bar-moves-against-nifong.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Read the <i>News and Observer</i>, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/526147.html">here</a>.<br /><br />Read WRAL, <a href="http://wral.com/news/local/story/1120129/">here</a>.<br /><br />Read CBS News, <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/12/28/national/main2308850.shtml">here</a>.<br /><br />Read ABC News, <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=2757571">here</a>.<br /><br />Read NBC News, <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16382357/">here</a>.<br /><br />Read FOX News, <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,239664,00.html">here</a>. <br /><br />Read TalkLeft commentary, <a href="http://forums.talkleft.com/index.php/topic,938.msg44607.html#msg44607">here</a>.<br /><br />CAUTION: Delusional, sociopathic drivel included.<br /><br />Read Free Republic commentary, <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1759575/posts">here</a>.<br /><br />The criminal case against the lacrosse players is all but over. Obviously, the disciplinary complaint will be amended or supplemented, and the coming US Justice Department filings will also include additional charges of obstruction of justice, prosecutorial abuse and criminal fraud, all in violation of the defendants' civil rights. To save a flagging primary campaign (and $30,000.00 of his own money), Nifong annointed himself chief criminal investigator to further the frame. He calculatedly refused to interview the other liar, despite being already possessed of strong evidence of the Duke players' non-involvement in her hallucinatory claims. He rigged the "can't miss" "line up" for the other liar, and handed these young men up for indictment based solely on "identifications" she then made, despite his knowledge of the exculpatory evidence. Most shockingly of all, he conspired with the DNA lab director, Meehan, to hide the exculpatory evidence. <br /><br />So comfortable in "Justice as Usual" in Durham, he really had no idea what particular hornets inhabited the nest he trained his Official Red Ryder Carbine-Action Two-Hundred-Shot Range Model Air Rifle upon.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/Mikey.jpg?t=1167361738"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/Mikey.jpg?t=1167361738" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />Idiot.<br /><br />He is going to be disbarred. He is going to jail.<br /><br />Let the games begin. <br /><br />"MICHAEL B. NIFONG, <s>Attorney,</s> Defendant" has such a lovely ring to it, doesn't it?August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com20tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-26303851170388184822006-12-25T21:15:00.000-05:002008-01-11T01:21:24.272-05:00It's Time, Crystal.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/falseaccuser.jpg?t=1167099338"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/falseaccuser.jpg?t=1167099338" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />It's time, Crystal. Time to grow up. Time to acknowledge that you can't go through life using other people. It's time to stop the destruction of others' lives to shield yourself from the consequences of your own poor choices. It's time to think of the Babe, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger. It's time to reflect on the faces of your own two children. Time to palm your belly and feel your coming third. It's time to see them on trial for their very lives because a fellow human being with a dead conscience chose to spew fantastic lies about them in a hazy grab at self-preservation. It's time to put yourself in the shoes of Mrs. Evans. And Mrs. Finnerty. And Mrs. Seligmann. It's time, Crystal. Time to reclaim your humanity. Time to find your conscience. Time to exhibit character, honor, integrity. It's time to stand before the cameras and admit to the fantastic lies so clearly already proven. Time to stop hiding as Cousin Clyde lies on your behalf some more. Time to tell those cameras all about Mr. Nifong. And Mr. Wilson. And Mr. Gottlieb. And Mr. Himan. And Big C. And Mr. Baker. And Mayor Bell. And "Doctor" Olatoye. It's time for the truth, Crystal. You may even avoid a prison sentence. Hell, your pals at Fox have already all but annointed you Nifong's "victim." Once you raise your hand, swear your oath, and lie from the witness box in open court, however, you will have comitted a felony. Become a convicted felon, go away. Go far, far away. For a good long time. Has Mr. Nifong made that clear to you? Think of the children, Crystal. Yours. And Mrs. Evans'. And Mrs. Finnerty's. And Mrs. Seligmann's. <br /><br />It's time.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com55tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-64437067419481937442006-12-24T10:03:00.000-05:002006-12-24T10:07:49.436-05:00Neff: "Moron Talk"; Nifong's Lies To Court<b>Pressure on Nifong in Duke case<br />Misstatements may cost him his career</b><br /> <br />Joseph Neff and Benjamin Niolet, Staff Writers<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/525091.html">DURHAM</a> - To press forward in the Duke University lacrosse case, District Attorney Mike Nifong must rely on scanty evidence while deflecting serious questions about whether he broke the law or violated the ethics rules governing prosecutors.<br />Nifong has acknowledged that the case now hangs on what the accuser says from the witness stand in a hearing scheduled for February. Meanwhile, pressure on Nifong continues to build.<br /><br />The State Bar has received multiple complaints demanding that he be disbarred. A congressman has called on the U.S. Justice Department to investigate him. And when the case returns to court, Nifong might have to explain repeated misrepresentations to judges about what evidence he had and why he did not disclose it all, as state law requires.<br /><br />Nifong dropped the rape charges on Friday, but felony charges remain pending against three former members of the Duke University lacrosse team: David Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; Collin Finnerty, 20, of Garden City, N.Y.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Fells, N.J. They are charged with attacking their accuser, an escort service dancer, at a team party last March.<br /><br />Nifong did not respond to a request for comment last week, and he declined to come out of his office on Friday when reporters asked him to talk about the rape charge dismissal. He has told The News & Observer that he would not discuss the case outside of court. But on Thursday, he granted The New York Times a three-hour interview, the newspaper reported Saturday.<br /><br />In May, Nifong gave the defense a 12-page report disclosing that DNA taken from the accuser's body did not match that of any member of the lacrosse team. He did not disclose that DNA from unidentified men had been found on her body and underwear.<br /><br />In the New York Times story, Nifong acknowledged that he should have turned that favorable evidence over to the defense. And he said withholding that information was an oversight -- he thought he had already turned it over.<br /><br />That was Nifong's third explanation why he did not turn over the evidence. At the start of a court hearing Dec. 15, he told a judge that the first he knew about the favorable evidence was two days earlier, when defense lawyers filed a motion on the matter.<br /><br />At that Dec. 15 hearing, a DNA expert hired by Nifong, Brian Meehan, testified that he and Nifong agreed to withhold test results showing that DNA from the unknown men had been found. After Meehan testified, Nifong told reporters that withholding the test results from a written report was a conscious decision to respect the players' privacy rights.<br /><br />"We were trying to, just as Dr. Meehan said, trying to avoid dragging any names through the mud," Nifong said. "His report made it clear that all the information was available if they wanted it and they have every word of it."<br /><br />But Nifong has bigger problems than his conflicting statements to reporters.<br /><br />Since May, Nifong has repeatedly misrepresented his actions in filings and in face-to-face dealings with judges. Nifong has repeatedly said that he disclosed everything about the DNA evidence.<br /><br />Federal and state law and state ethics rules require prosecutors to hand over all exculpatory evidence -- evidence that might indicate a person's innocence -- in a criminal case. Nifong acknowledged to The New York Times that the DNA tests results were "potentially exculpatory."<br /><br />The misrepresentations began in May.<br /><br />ON MAY 18, NIFONG FILED A NOTICE saying he had handed all evidence in his possession to the defense. He knew of nothing else favorable to the defendants, he wrote.<br /><br />At a hearing that day, he told Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Stephens, "I've turned over everything I have."<br /><br />But Meehan, the DNA expert, testified Dec. 15 that Nifong knew in April that Meehan's lab had discovered genetic material from unknown men on samples taken from the woman's body and underwear.<br /><br />ON JUNE 22, NIFONG TOLD JUDGE STEPHENS in a hearing that he and Meehan had discussed only the contents of a report that was turned over to the defense.<br /><br />Defense lawyer Joseph B. Cheshire V sounded skeptical at the time: "It's very difficult for me, although I take Mr. Nifong as an officer of the court at his word, to believe that there was no discussion at all as it relates to that testing."<br /><br />Testifying on Dec. 15, Meehan said at least 33 times that he and Nifong discussed the results or agreed to keep them from the lab's final report.<br /><br />AT A HEARING SEPT. 22, defense attorney Bradley Bannon pressed Nifong for more details of his conversations with Meehan.<br /><br />Nifong again said they discussed only the contents of the report. "We did not ask any questions because the information was there in the summary [Meehan] had given us," Nifong said. "It was pretty clear. [Meehan] provided that to us. We looked over it. And we didn't have any questions about what was there. There's nothing really to provide."<br /><br />Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III, who has been assigned to the case, pressed for a clear answer to Bannon's question: "So his report encompasses it all?"<br /><br />Nifong answered haltingly: "His report encompasses ever -- because we didn't -- they apparently think that everybody I speak to about, I talk about the facts of the case. And that's just, that would be counterproductive. It did not happen here."<br /><br />Smith repeated his question: "So you represent there are no other statements?"<br /><br />"No other statements," Nifong said. "No other statements made to me."<br /><br />ON OCT. 27, SMITH SIGNED AN ORDER THAT STATED: "Mr. Nifong indicated that he did not discuss the facts of the case with Dr. Meehan and that Dr. Meehan said nothing during those meetings beyond what was encompassed in the final report of DNA Security, dated May 12, 2006. The Court accepted Mr. Nifong's representation about those meetings and held that there were no additional discoverable statements by Dr. Meehan for the state to produce."<br /><br />These in-court statements crumbled on Dec. 15, when Meehan testified that he discussed the results with Nifong and they agreed to withhold them from the report. "We agreed with Mr. Nifong that we would report just the stuff that matched so that it would, so the report was limited in its scope," Meehan said.<br /><br />The delay getting the information to the defense probably won't have much impact on the charges, said Richard Myers, a former federal prosector and assistant professor of law at the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Law. A judge would have to consider whether the delay was harmful to the defense; the likely remedy would be to give the lawyers more time to prepare for trial.<br /><br />But Judge Smith may consider whether Nifong intentionally misrepresented his actions. Lawyers have a duty to be honest with the court, Myers said.<br /><br />"The judge is going to have to decide for himself -- 'Has he been truthful with me, and was it an honest oversight?' " Myers said.<br /><br />The judge could hold a lawyer in contempt, refer the matter to the State Bar or remove a prosecutor from the case for an actual conflict of interest, Myers said.<br /><br /><b>Meehan hired a lawyer to defend the actions of his lab. In an interview, the lawyer, Fred Antoun, said the defense lawyers were wrong to demand a report with all results included. The results could be found in the roughly 1,800 pages of technical documents that a judge ordered them in September to produce; the defense received them in late October.<br /><br />"That is a childlike complaint," said Antoun, who practices in Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C. "The DA did hand it over; it just wasn't written in moron talk."</b><br /><br />Antoun defended Meehan's partial report on several grounds: Reporting all the tests would result in a massive report that no one could understand. It would violate the privacy of the players, whom Antoun kept referring to as "soccer players." And listing all the test results would sully the reputation of the accuser, he said.<br /><br />Antoun is not licensed to practice in North Carolina, where the law requires experts to write up a report of any test they perform.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-92111636557792885292006-12-22T17:15:00.002-05:002006-12-23T02:47:03.124-05:00Oz, This Is Too Easy<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/OzinWonderland.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/OzinWonderland.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br /><b>(And it needn't wait until February 5th.)</b><br /><br />After months of "no comment," Mikey's begun flapping his gums again. In a <a href="http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?showtopic=909&view=findpost&p=7040944">three hour interview</a> with Gotham organists David Barstow and Duff "The Sports Reporter" Wilson, Nifong proves himself but a cornered rat flashing teeth in a desperate and doomed last-ditch attempt to avoid being bludgeoned to death. The nut really is unhinged. <br /><br />Last week you heard sworn testimony from the principal of <strong><a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/12/clueless.html">Doctor Nick's DNA Lab & Sanitation Services</a></strong>. You will recall his unequivocal statement that he and Nifong affirmatively decided back in April not to include the scientifically confirmed presence of DNA from five men, in and upon the panties of the other liar, in the "final" testing report Nifong provided to the defendants' attorneys. You also heard, of course, that none of that DNA was from any of the three defendants to this continuing farce.<br /><br />You will also recall Nifong lying to the court, on <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195980,00.html">May 18th</a>, when he filed the following perjurious statement: "The state is not aware of any additional material or information which may be exculpatory in nature with respect to the defendant." <br /><br />You will also recall Nifong <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/521773.html">lying to you</a>, just last Friday, when he told you that "[t]he first I had heard of this particular situation (his non-production of what should have been case ending exculpatory DNA evidence) was when I was served with this particular motion" two days before he lied to you.<br /><br />I'm sure by now you've read the latest <i>New York Times</i> spin, wherein Nifong lies again, stating that he didn't realize that he hadn't turned over those (exculpatory) DNA testing results simply because the sheer volume of the underlying material "wasn’t something I was concentrating on." What a crock. He knew what that voluminous data showed. He knew it showed that five guys had left their seed in and upon the clothing of the other liar, in close temporal proximity to the infamous lacrosse team party. He knew that none of the lacrosse players were any of the five seed donors. He knew, thus, that the other liar's statement of having not had consensual sex for a week before the party was, well, a lie. He knew all of this before he presented Seligmann and Finnerty, and, later, Dave Evans, to the Grand Jury for indictment. AND HE CRIMINALLY CONSPIRED WITH DR. NICK TO BURY IT.<br /><br />Suddenly, NOW, Nifong (<i>tah DAAAH!</i>) has a cartoon lightbulb go on over his head. Suddenly, NOW, he dispatches his bad check investigator to suddenly, NOW, ascertain from the other liar that "she could no longer be sure what had penetrated her." Suddenly, NOW, he opines that "since there is no scientific or other evidence independent of the victim’s testimony that would corroborate specifically penetration by a penis, the state is unable to meet its burden of proof with respect to this offense."<br /><br />Well, Oz, you see what you are suddenly, NOW, presented with: The opportunity and, indeed, the necessary obligation to dismiss these spurious persecutorial charges, NOW.<br /><br />Nifong seems to think you are a fool. He seems to think that you are stupid. He seems to think that you are a patsy or, at least, a Durham judge. He seems to think that you would be duped into allowing him to channel Bill Clinton, quibble over how one defines "lineup," and pervert the currently scheduled February 5th hearing upon the defendants' forever pending LINEUP "Identification" Suppression Motion into a <i>de facto</i> opportunity for the other liar to point her accusatory finger at the three men who have had <i>their</i> faces plastered all over all manner of media for, by then, <i>eleven months</i>, to justify his vindictive march forward. <br /><br />You're not stupid, Oz. You know that Nifong's dismissal of the rape charges today, upon the non-reliability of the other liar, renders her "identifications," whose incredible nature had been <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/content/news/story_graphics/20061214_motion.pdf">surgically dissected</a> previously in the defendants' joint motion, all the more unreliable. The evidence before the court is incontrovertible. There's no need for a hearing to be held. You must be personally affronted by Nifong's playing you for a fool. You must be incensed by his perjuring himself to your face in a transparent attempt to save the sheepskin his JD was printed on. You must be disgusted by the disrepute his shameless unethical conduct has imposed upon the bar and Courts of Durham County and North Carolina. <br /><br />Hail all counsel in front of you on Tuesday, the day after Christmas. Suppress the "alleged identifications." Dismiss all charges. Extend to the wrongfully accused the heartfelt apologies of the Great State of North Carolina. Hold Nifong in criminal contempt. Have him removed from your sight in handcuffs. Submit your findings of fact and conclusions of law to state bar disciplinary authorities, and USAG Gonzales. Sleep well at night.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-71416783338577964402006-12-19T11:20:00.000-05:002006-12-19T11:25:02.526-05:00When Did You Know It Was A Hoax?The first time I heard Kim's <a href="http://www.wral.com/news/local/video/156603/">911 call</a>.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-19405383319167012042006-12-15T20:32:00.000-05:002006-12-15T23:53:10.988-05:00Comfortable Liar<a href="http://kirkosborn.com/Motions/MotiontoSuppressPhotos.pdf">March 23, 2006</a>:<br /><br /><b>"The DNA evidence requested will immediately rule out any innocent persons</b>, and show conclusive evidence as to who the suspect(s) are in the alleged violent attack upon this victim."<br /><br />("Attachment For Application For Nontestimonial Identification Order," affiants David Saacks, Esq., Assistant District Attorney, and Investigator Benjamin Himan.)<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10528607.pdf">April 7th</a>: <br /><br />DNASI completed testing DNA extractions from Mangum's panties' stains, and rectal and vaginal swabs. Negative for the presence of DNA from any lacrosse player.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10527414.pdf">April 10th</a>: <br /><br />Nifong, Gottlieb and Himan, drive to DNASI and discuss testing with Meehan. Leaving that meeting, then, they had to know of the negative results of testing completed on the 7th. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12285585/from/RL.4/">April 11th</a>:<br /><br /><b>MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</b> <br /><br />A lot has been said in the press, particularly by some attorneys yesterday, about this case should go away. <b>I hope that you will understand by the fact that I am here this morning that my presence here means this case is not going away.</b><br /><br /><b>MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</b> <br /><br />Duke University Hospital is the best trauma center in the area. This nurse was specially trained in sexual assault and <b>I would just point out that my conviction that a sexual assault actually took place is based on the examination that was done at Duke Hospital.</b><br /><br /><b>MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</b> <br /><br />It's important to remember that there are 46 members of the Duke University lacrosse team who were asked to submit to giving samples for DNA testing and only three of those people are alleged to have been involved in the assault <b>so until we identify all three of those people that means that some of these young men are going to be walking around under a cloud where innocent people are being thought that perhaps they are guilty just because of their association.</b><br /><br /><b>MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</b> <br /><br /><b>She was grabbed from behind so that in essence somebody had an arm around her like this which she then had to struggle with in order to be able to breathe and it was in the course of that struggle that the fingernails, the artificial fingernails broke off. Now, as you can see from my arm, if I were wearing a shirt, a long sleeve shirt or a jacket of some sort, even if there were enough force used to press down to break my skin through the clothing there might not be anyway that anything from my arm could get on to those fingernails. So, again, whether or not there would be any evidence would depend on exactly the situation. Were the fingernails actually in contact with the skin or were they in contact with clothing?</b> <br /><br />UNIDENTIFIED MALE: <br /><br />Within the last couple of years, a white female was assaulted allegedly by a black male, a black student at Duke was going to his work study job, the police grabbed him, put him in jail, and later said oops, sorry, mistaken identity, but you met the profile. Those lacrosse players met the profile, why weren‘t they arrested? Now, what is the differences? Is it the billion-dollar a year operating budget of Duke which can buy anything and everyone?<br /><br /><b>MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</b> <br /><br />You are asking me why in a city where a black man was wrongly arrested because he was mistaken for somebody who might have committed a crime <b>why haven't we arrested a whole bunch of white men knowing that only three of them could have committed the crime and the fingers are pointed at 46. My answer to you, sir, my answer to you is, sir, I don't want to arrest the wrong person in any case. I only want to arrest the right person and I want to convict the right person and I don't want anybody who did not commit a crime to be arrested or put on trial. That's my answer, sir.</b> <br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/497626.html">April 11th</a>: <br /><br />Nifong meets with Mangum for, he says, the only time. But they didn't discuss two rounds of negative DNA testing. In fact, he says, they didn't discuss the case at all, what with Mangum still being so <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/503439.html">traumatized, and all</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10528607.pdf">April 13th</a>: <br /><br />DNASI completed testing DNA extractions of Mangum's rape kit pubic hair comb. Negative for the presence of DNA from any lacrosse player.<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-old-news-thats-print-to-fit-with_24.html">April 13th</a>: <br /><br />Kirk Osborn attempts to meet with Nifong to proffer factual proof that his client, Reade Seligmann, <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/07/duke-case-reade-seligmanns-alibi-in.html">could not possibly have participated</a> in the crimes alleged. Nifong tersely rebukes Osborn, by proxy: <br /><br /><i>"I’ve known the guy for 25 years," Mr. Osborn said in mid-April. "I went over and thought surely he’d listen to me on it. And he sent some messenger out and said, 'I saw you on the TV saying your client was absolutely innocent, so what do we have to talk about?' He wouldn’t even see me himself."</i> <br /><br /><a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/enabling-hoax.html">April 17th</a>: <br /><br />Seligmann and Finnerty are indicted. Nifong elected not to arrest the suspects identified by Mangum at the rigged April 4th photo lineup. Had he done so, the defendants would have been entitled to a probable cause hearing, to be conducted within fifteen business days of their arraignments, or first appearances, before the bench. At such a hearing, the defendants would have had the opportunity to examine the state's "evidence," cross-examine its witnesses, and present exculpatory evidence. Nifong wasn't interested in such petty matters. The Democratic primary was little more than two weeks away. A probable cause hearing scheduled following arrests made on any day after the 4th would have, in all likelihood, been conducted <i>after</i> the primary. Nifong could not have that, inasmuch as his slim hopes of defeating Freda Black rested exclusively within his ability to charge three white Duke lacrosse players with the heinous crimes alleged <i>before</i> the primary, so as to satiate the bloodlust of a majority of Durham's black voters. Thus, despite Mangum having "identified" four extremely dangerous, sexually depraved thugs on April 4th, Nifong let them walk the proverbial streets of Durham for two more weeks before presenting charges against them to a grand jury.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10527414.pdf">April 20 or 21</a>: <br /><br />Nifong, Gottlieb and Himan, drive to DNASI and discuss testing with Meehan. Leaving that meeting, then, they had to know of the negative results of testing completed on the 13th. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10527414.pdf">May 12th</a>: Meehan submits DNASI's "final report" to Nifong. It is woefully deficient, as set forth within counsels' <a href="http://wral.com/news/local/flash/1105316/">December 13th motion</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/news/9217769/detail.html">May 15th</a>: David Evans is indicted.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195980,00.html">May 18th</a>:<br /><br /><b>MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</b> <br /><br />The state is not aware of any additional material or information which may be exculpatory in nature with respect to the defendant [Seligmann]. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/521773.html">December 15th</a>:<br /><br /><b>Mr. Cooney:</b> Did Nifong and his investigators know the results of all the DNA tests? <br /><br /><b>The Witness:</b> I believe so.<br /><br /><b>Mr. Cooney:</b> Did they know the test results excluded Reade Seligmann?<br /><br /><b>The Witness:</b> I believe so.<br /><br /><b>Mr. Cooney:</b> Was the failure to report these results the intentional decision of you and the district attorney? <br /><br /><b>The Witness:</b> Yes.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Meehan's testimony differed from a statement Nifong made at the beginning of today's hearing.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">MIKE NIFONG, DURHAM, NC, D.A.:</span><br /><br /><b>The first I had heard of this particular situation was when I was served with this particular motion on Wednesday.</b> <br /><br /><b>And we were trying to, just as Dr. Meehan said, trying to avoid dragging any names through the mud</b> but at the same time his report made it clear that all the information was available if they wanted it and they have every word of it.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>District Attorney Mike Nifong told a judge during today's Duke lacrosse case hearing that he was unaware of DNA that did not match the accused lacrosse players until this week, when defense lawyers included the information in a motion.</b><br /> <br />The head of a private lab that did the testing said he had <b>discussed testing results with Nifong at several meetings.</b><br /> <br />Brian Meehan, head of DNA Security, the private lab that did the testing, said the <b>evidence of other DNA was not included in the final report given to Nifong and defense lawyers because of privacy concerns and because he was not asked to provide that.<br /><br />"Mr. Nifong specifically wanted us to say if the reference specimens matched any of the evidence. That's what we gave him."</b><br /><br />***<br /><br />KC: <br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/meehan-nifong-and-exculpatory.html">Meehan, Nifong and Exculpatory</a><br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/dsi.html">DSI</a><br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/perry-mason-moment.html">The Perry Mason Moment</a><br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-meehan.html">More Meehan</a><br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/more-from-meehan.html">More From Meehan</a><br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/12/meehan-dsi-doesnt-follow-its-own.html">Meehan: DSI Doesn't Follow Its Own Procedures</a><br /><br />***<br /><br />Now, I'm not a <i>Wizard</i> or anything, but, when Meehan testified today that he and Nifong <s>conspired</s> agreed not to include, in the original "Final" Report provided to defense counsel, documentation of the presence of the DNA of multiple males, none of which was a lacrosse player, so as to, um, "protect the privacy of lacrosse players who weren't implicated in the case," why didn't OZ begin to inquire from the bench, perhaps like this:<br /><br />Q: Excuse me, Mr. Cooney, if I might. Let me understand this, Dr. Meehan, you wanted to "protect the privacy of lacrosse players who weren't implicated in the case," is that what you just said? <br />A: Yes, Your Honor.<br />Q: Is that what you meant to say, sir?<br />A: Yes, sir.<br />Q: Now, you and Mr. Nifong discussed the test results on several occasions, correct? <br />A: Correct.<br />Q: And the first round of testing at your facility was concluded on April 7th, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: And that testing fully ruled out both the accuser's boyfriend and <i>any</i> lacrosse player as contributors of DNA in the vaginal cavity, rectal cavity, or upon the panties of the accuser, correct? <br />A: Correct.<br />Q: That same first round of testing at your facility was positive for the presence of the DNA multiple male donors in the accuser's vaginal cavity, anal cavity and upon her panties, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: By the way, did you know that the accuser had previously given a statement wherein she indicated that she had last had consensual sexual intercourse a week before the date on which the rape kit specimens were collected?<br />A: No, I didn't know that, Sir.<br />Q: It's true, she did. But I digress. Where was I? Oh, yeah, Mr. Nifong met with you personally at your facility with Investigators Gottlieb and Himan on April 10th, correct? <br />A: Correct.<br />Q: By the way, in addition to the meeting in your offices on the 10th, you also spoke to Mr. Nifong numerous times by telephone, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: And discussed the testing results, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: In fact, the testing results was the subject matter of all of your conversations with Mr. Nifong, correct? <br />A: What do you mean?<br />Q: Well, Mr. Nifong had retained your firm to perform forensic DNA tests, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: You wouldn't be talking to him then, for example, about the last night's Little League scores, right?<br />A: Right. <br />Q: Now, you discussed the April 7th test results with Mr. Nifong at that meeting on the 10th, correct? <br />A: Correct. <br />Q: And you told him that testing was negative for lacrosse player DNA, correct?<br />A: Yes. <br />Q: You also told him that there was, however, the presence of DNA left by multiple other males in the accuser's vagina, rectum and on her panties, correct? <br />A: Correct. <br />Q: So, sir, would you please tell me what you meant when you said your agreement with Mr. Nifong not to include the positive results was to "protect the privacy of lacrosse players who weren't implicated in the case?"<br />A: What do you mean?<br />Q: I mean, sir, that <i>none</i> of the lacrosse players were implicated in the case by any tests performed at your facility, correct?<br />A: Their DNA was not present, correct.<br />Q: So, in fact, sir, there were no players whose privacy needed protecting, at least as concerns the results of testing at your facility, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: Because not one lacrosse player's DNA was found, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: But Mr. Nifong had particular instructions for you regarding what he wanted your final reports to reflect, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: I believe you've told us that he only wanted your report to indicate if there were any MATCHES between DNA material retrieved from the rape kit specimens and the samples provided by the players and certain other individuals, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: And you knew, when Mr. Nifong made the request, that what he was requesting was in contravention of the very reporting protocols of your own facility, correct? <br />A: Correct.<br />Q: But you did it anyway, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: Because you really wanted to be involved in this case, correct?<br />A: Correct. The customer's always right, right?<br />Q: Now your facility concluded testing upon the pubic hair comb that was made part of the accuser's rape it on April 13th, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: And you spoke to Mr. Nifong about those test results, as well, correct? <br />A: Correct.<br />Q: Which, incidentally, were likewise 100% negative for the presence of DNA contributed by <i>any</i> lacrosse player, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: And you conveyed these results to Mr. Nifong by telephone shortly after they were concluded, correct?<br />A: Correct.<br />Q: Same day?<br />A: Maybe. We don't keep any logs of telephone calls.<br />Q: Well, you told him the results before you met with him in your office again on the 20th, correct?<br />A: I don't remember, sir.<br />Q: Certainly you conveyed the results of the testing concluded on April 13th when you met with him personally on the 20th, right?<br />A: Right.<br />Q: There were no lacrosse players whose privacy needed protection from the results of that latter round of testing, either, right, because that testing did not, itself, implicate any lacrosse player, correct?<br />A: Huh?<br />Q: There having been no lacrosse player DNA found, no lacrosse player's privacy interest needed to be protected, wouldn't you agree?<br />A: Yes, sir. <br />Q: Madame Clerk, on what days did Mr. Nifong present Mssrs. Seligmann, Finnerty and Evans to the Grand Jury for indictment, again? I see.<br /><br />Bailiff, kindly place Mr. Nifong in handcuffs and escort him from the courtroom. Case dismissed. <br /><br /><i>::..Gavel..::</i>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-13892832865227276552006-12-14T15:10:00.000-05:002006-12-14T17:53:49.080-05:00Substantive Joint ID Suppression Motion Filed<a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/521389.html">Neff</a> must have a cot in the clerk's office.<br /><br />Read it, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/content/news/story_graphics/20061214_motion.pdf">here</a>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-17929219646172965122006-12-13T13:34:00.004-05:002007-01-22T14:11:41.867-05:00Bad Faith<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/badfaith.jpg?t=1166074794"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/badfaith.jpg?t=1166074794" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In his concurring opinion in <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?friend=nytimes&court=us&vol=401&invol=37"><i>Younger v. Harris</i></a>, 471 U.S. 37 (1971), Mr. Justice Stewart noted that <br /><br /><i>The questions the Court decides today are important ones. Perhaps as important, however, is a recognition of the areas into which today's holdings do not necessarily extend. In all of these cases, the Court deals only with the proper policy to be followed by a federal court when asked to intervene by injunction or declaratory judgment in a criminal prosecution which is contemporaneously pending in a state court...<br /><br />The Court confines itself to deciding the policy considerations that in our federal system must prevail when federal courts are asked to interfere with pending state prosecutions. Within this area, <b>we hold that a federal court must not, save in exceptional and extremely limited circumstances, intervene by way of either injunction or declaration in an existing state criminal prosecution. Such circumstances exist only when there is a threat of irreparable injury "both great and immediate." A threat of this nature might be shown</b> if the state criminal statute in question were patently and flagrantly unconstitutional on its face <i>(citation omitted)</i>, or <b>if there has been bad faith and harassment - official lawlessness - in a statute's enforcement <i>(citation omitted)</i>. In such circumstances the reasons of policy for deferring to state adjudication are outweighed by the injury flowing from the very bringing of the state proceedings, by the perversion of the very process that is supposed to provide vindication, and by the need for speedy and effective action to protect federal rights.</b></i><br /><br />The Court's restatement of long embraced deference to a sovereign state's freedom to prosecute criminal matters unencumbered by federal meddling (save in those exceptional circumstances summarized by Justice Stewart) came to be colloquially known as "<i>Younger</i> Abstention." <br /><br />On Monday, we learned of North Carolina Congressman Walter Jones' formal <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/12/mr-jones-and-me.html">written request for federal investigation</a> of Mike Nifong's conduct in furtherance of the Duke non-rape case. <br /><br />Yesterday, counsel for Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans jointly filed a <a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10528607.pdf">stunning motion</a> detailing how DNA Security, Inc. <a href="http://www.dnasi.com/aboutus.htm">(DNASI)</a>, the forensics laboratory retained by Nifong to conduct further testing upon DNA samples after SBI testing turned up nothing inculpatory against any player, failed to disclose its findings of what should have been hoax-ending exculpatory evidence in its "final report" to Nifong, dated May 12, 2006. Particularly, the report, um, failed to mention that<br /><br /><i>DNA Security identified DNA from multiple males in the accuser's anus, in her pubic region and on her panties. Enough of that DNA existed for DNA Security to conclude that none of it matched the defendants, their teammates on the 2006 Duke University Men's Lacrosse team, or anyone else who submitted a DNA sample in the investigation.</i><br /><br />Further, when DNASI, despite aggressive protest, was compelled by court Order to submit its entire file to the defense in October, counsel discovered that it had failed to follow its own Reporting and Documentation policies. The motion makes clear how DNASI failed, in numerous instances, to even describe particular items of evidence examined, or to set forth the results of <u>each</u> DNA test performed. In fact, "despite performing DNA tests on over a dozen evidentiary items, DNA Security only reported its analysis of three of those items." <br /><br />On the heels of these last two most interesting days, then, let us take a fong look back at bad faith, harrassment, official lawlessness, perversion of process, the need for speedy and effective action to protect federal rights, and the reasons why <i>Younger</i> Abstention is inapplicable to the case at bar, shall we?<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060904fa_fact">Spring, 2006</a>: Erstwhile Traffic Court <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/493316.html">Dictator-For-Life</a> and <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/08/hes-losing-case-hes-losing-election.html">Dog Control Officer</a> Nifong is in the fight of his political life. He badly trails <a href="http://outsidereport.blogspot.com/2006/04/freda-black-made-him-do-it-explaining.html#comments">Freda Black</a> in the Democratic primary race for District Attorney. This will not do. Nifong can't stand Freda Black. Considering that he <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=local&id=4124686">fired her</a> one day after being appointed interim D.A., in 2005, the feeling is mutual. If he loses to his former officemate, he's out of a job. What to do? What to do? Why, loan his sagging campaign THIRTY THOUSAND <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/follow-money.html">($30,000.00)</a> DOLLARS, of course! <br /><br /><a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/09/duke-case-statement-of-sgt-jc-shelton.html">March 14, 2006</a>: Crystal Gail Mangum got an idea. An awful idea! CRYSTAL GAIL MANGUM GOT A WONDERFUL, AWFUL IDEA!<br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-did-nifong-know-and-when-did-he.html">March 16th</a>: Mangum is shown a first photo array, as police attempt to have her identify the perpetrators of her awful idea. <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/468272.html">"This is harder than I thought"</a>, she complains, failing to identify anyone.<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/search?q=happy+st.+patrick%27s+day">March 17th</a>: Mangum, allegedly "too traumatized" to discuss the case with Nifong nearly a month later, on April 11, is back at the Platinum Club, stripping, pole dancing, and giving "clients" the private, "VIP" treatment three days after allegedly having just endured a brutal gang rape. A former co-worker alleges that she then boasted that she was going to <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/145/story/506116.html">"get paid by the white boys"</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/09/himan-note-of-kim-roberts-32006.html">March 20th</a>: The other stripper with Mangum at the lacrosse party tells Investigator Benjamin Himan that she was in Mangum's company for all but five minutes at the time in question, and that Mangum's awful idea is a "crock of shit."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/468272.html">March 21st</a>: Mangum is shown a second photo array. She, again, cannot identify anyone as an assailant.<br /><br /><a href="http://kirkosborn.com/Motions/MotiontoSuppressPhotos.pdf">March 23d</a>: Despite, or because of, the foregoing, Durham County's "Minister of Justice," Mike Nifong, had an <a href="http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=257D607E514B11DBA5C32EF149F8C96D%3Cbr/%3E">awful idea of his own</a>, and personally commandeered the investigation. On this day, his chief assistant prosecutor, David Saacks, Esq., and Himan, <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/11/oz-in-wonderland-youve-got-to-move.html">submitted perjurious representations</a> to Nifong's ol' buddy Ron Stephens, in their joint Affidavit in Support of the D.A.'s request for an Order that all white members of the 2006 Duke Men's Lacrosse team submit to photography and cheek swabbings for the collection of DNA. Ol' buddy did not disappoint. Complainant can't identify her assailants? Fuggedaboudit. Modern science would now do that for her, or so the Minister of Justice shortly later <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12285585/from/RL.4/">promised</a>. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/421494.html">March 24th</a>: The Raleigh <i>News & Observer</i> "breaks" the "victim's" story to the Triangle community, and the nation. <br /><br /><a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/stretching-credulity_27.html">March 24th</a>: Nifong formally assumes the role of lead investigator of Crystal Gail Mangum's awful idea, directing Sgt. Gottlieb and Officer Himan to report directly to him.<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/11/and-here-comes-icepick-in-forehead.html">March 26th</a>: Mangum is videotaped pole dancing at the Platinum Club. <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/503820.html">Good old Precious</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/news/8292559/detail.html">March 27th</a>: The 2006 "Minister of Justice" tour begins, with Nifong confidently awaiting SBI DNA test results while slandering the entire white membership of the 2006 Duke Men's Lacrosse team for an adoring camera. <br /><br /><i>The district attorney's office said team members deny the accusations, but admit there was underage drinking at the party. Otherwise, they are not cooperating with authorities.<br /><br />Nifong, who said Monday that he himself will prosecute the case, said authorities may apply for more search warrants in the case and that more charges for aiding and abetting may be possible against partygoers.<br /><br />"There's a good chance if someone had spoken up and said, 'You can't do this,' it might not have happened," Nifong said.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.nbc17.com/education/8323322/detail.html">March 28th</a>: The tour revs up; Nifong continues to unequivocally assert that forthcoming DNA results will solve the case.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10528607.pdf">March 28th</a>: SBI Serology Agent, Rachel Winn, determined that the oral, vaginal, rectal and panties swabs and smears taken of the accuser as part of the initial Rape Kit did not show evidence of semen, blood or saliva. Accordingly, if curiously, she did not forward these items to the SBI DNA Section for further testing. <br /><br /><a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/nifongian-mathematics.html">March 29th, <i>et. seq.</i></a>: Nifong, oh-so-coincidentally, commenced to minimize the importance of DNA testing and results, as the Tour cranked into over-drive. During this phase of the tour, Nifong outrageously and repeatedly violated <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/technicality.html">Rule 3.8(f)</a> of the state Rules of Professional Conduct, which prohibit prosecutors "from making extrajudicial comments that have a substantial likelihood of heightening public condemnation of the accused." <br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/468272.html">March 31st</a>: Nifong ordered Gottlieb and Himan to conduct a third photo identification session with Mangum, this time showing her <i>only</i> photographs of the white members of the 2006 Duke Lacrosse team. This brainstorm assured that any individual(s) Mangum pointed to would be members of the suspect pool. That nice Mr. Nifong set up for her <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13392547/site/newsweek/page/4/">"a multiple choice test with no wrong answers."</a> This Nifongian procedure violated all state, city and Police Department <a href="http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/28086.html">norms</a> existing to insure that a suspect is accorded <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/technicality.html">procedural justice</a>, in flagrant violation of Professional Conduct Rule 3.8, comment 1.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/slideshow/dukelacrosse/9141851/detail.html">April 4th</a>: Mangum participates in the rigged photo lineup. She identifies four men as her attackers, including Reade Seligmann and David Evans, both of whom she did not recognize in the photo arrays of March 16 and 21, and Collin Finnerty, whose physical characteristics <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/08/how-to-succeed-in-law-enforcement.html">did not remotely comport</a> with her own descriptions of her assailants to Himan on March 16th.<br /><br /><a href="http://hometown.aol.com/VIP%20PASSES/Soucie2.pdf">April 4th</a>: After meeting with Nifong to report the results of the rigged photo lineup, Investigator Michelle Soucie contacted Dr. Brian Meehan of DNASI to see what his lab might do and charge for additional testing of evidentiary items in the case. Per Soucie's notes, Meehan went through the type of testing available and offered to "possibly adjust prices because they would really like to be involved in the case."<br /><br />The Democratic primary was less than a month away. <br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/06/imagine-if-you-will-jarriel-l-johnson.html">April 6th</a>: Mangum's "driver," Jarriel L. Johnson, gives a lengthy written statement to DPD, memorializing in comic detail her rather busy 'appointment schedule' over the three days preceeding the lacrosse team party. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10528607.pdf">April 7th</a>: DNASI completed testing DNA extractions from Mangum's panties' stains, and rectal and vaginal swabs. Negative for the presence of DNA from any lacrosse player.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10527414.pdf">April 10th</a>: Nifong, Gottlieb and Himan, drive to DNASI and discuss testing with Meehan. Leaving that meeting, then, they had to know of the negative results of testing completed on the 7th. Unless they didn't.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/497626.html">April 11th</a>: Nifong meets with Mangum for, he says, the only time. But they didn't discuss two rounds of negative DNA testing. In fact, he says, they didn't discuss the case at all, what with Mangum still being so <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/503439.html">traumatized, and all</a>. They talked about her kids. Gottlieb, Nifong says, is mistaken in his belief that, at <a href="http://p206.ezboard.com/fhackedbannedandlockeddownfrm45.showMessage?topicID=17.topic">2:00 p.m. on April 11</a>, "the victim and District Attorney Nifong met with one another and discussed the case." Nifong, Nifong says, is mistaken in his belief that he <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/10/caught-by-his-own-words.html">did speak with Mangum about the case</a> on April 11th. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10528607.pdf">April 13th</a>: DNASI completed testing DNA extractions of Mangum's rape kit pubic hair comb. Negative for the presence of DNA from any lacrosse player.<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/08/all-old-news-thats-print-to-fit-with_24.html">April 13th</a>: Kirk Osborn attempts to meet with Nifong to proffer factual proof that his client, Reade Seligmann, <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/07/duke-case-reade-seligmanns-alibi-in.html">could not possibly have participated</a> in the crimes alleged. Nifong tersely rebukes Osborn, by proxy: <br /><br /><i>"I’ve known the guy for 25 years," Mr. Osborn said in mid-April. "I went over and thought surely he’d listen to me on it. And he sent some messenger out and said, 'I saw you on the TV saying your client was absolutely innocent, so what do we have to talk about?' He wouldn’t even see me himself."</i> <br /><br /><a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/enabling-hoax.html">April 17th</a>: Seligmann and Finnerty are indicted. Nifong elected not to arrest the suspects identified by Mangum at the rigged April 4th photo lineup. Had he done so, the defendants would have been entitled to a probable cause hearing, to be conducted within fifteen business days of their arraignments, or first appearances, before the bench. At such a hearing, the defendants would have had the opportunity to examine the state's "evidence," cross-examine its witnesses, and present exculpatory evidence. Nifong wasn't interested in such petty matters. The Democratic primary was little more than two weeks away. A probable cause hearing scheduled following arrests made on any day after the 4th would have, in all likelihood, been conducted <i>after</i> the primary. Nifong could not have that, inasmuch as his slim hopes of defeating Freda Black rested exclusively within his ability to charge three white Duke lacrosse players with the heinous crimes alleged <i>before</i> the primary, so as to satiate the bloodlust of a majority of Durham's black voters. Thus, despite Mangum having "identified" four extremely dangerous, sexually depraved thugs on April 4th, Nifong let them walk the proverbial streets of Durham for two more weeks before presenting charges against them to a grand jury.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10527414.pdf">April 20 or 21</a>: Nifong, Gottlieb and Himan, drive to DNASI and discuss testing with Meehan. Leaving that meeting, then, they had to know of the negative results of testing completed on the 13th. Unless they didn't.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/download/2006/1213/10527414.pdf">May 12th</a>: Meehan submits DNASI's "final report" to Nifong. It is woefully deficient, as set forth above and at length within counsels' December 13th motion.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/news/9217769/detail.html">May 15th</a>: David Evans is indicted.<br /><br />It is appropriate here to note that, following Mangum's initial accusations of March 14th, Chief Investigator Nifong never sought to have the "second dancer," Kim Roberts, i.e., the universally described lucid one of the pair on the night in question, look at any photo arrays. He never sought to have her interviewed regarding Mangum's statement implicating her in the assaults and robbery alleged to have been perpetrated. He never sought to have Mangum's "other driver," Brian Taylor, interviewed. He refused the players' offer to submit to lie detector testing. He refused to view the results of lie detector tests all three defendants, nonetheless, submitted to unilaterally. <br /><br />Once faced with the realities of DNA testing, he hinted that Mangum's imaginary attackers might have worn condoms, despite Mangum having expressly stated 1) that they did not, and; 2) that at least two fiends had ejaculated in her mouth and rectum. He floated the rumor that Mangum may have been given a date rape drug, when chemical testing had confirmed that no such thing had occurred. <br /><br />Throughout the summer and into the fall, Chief Investigator Nifong parcelled out discovery like breadcrumbs, railed against such "frivolous" defense requests as those for Mangum's cell phone records and the complete DNASI file contents, wasted the court's time with meritless motion practice, was at the helm when material, relevant audiotaped evidence was destroyed despite prior Order that it be preserved, and otherwise generally <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/12/red-flags-and-more-red-flags-white.html">acted</a> like the narcissistic sociopath that he surely is.<br /><br />In the face of the facts disclosed in yesterday's defense motion, it is now crystal clear that Nifong intentionally and willfully perpetuated an unjust persecution largely of his own creation, immeasurably damaged untold numbers of lives, wickedly stoked the fires of racial mistrust and divisions for selfish aggrandizement, obstructed the administration of justice, most likely in affirmative conspiracy with DNASI's Dr. Meehan, all to the great and immediate harm of the defendants, with no concern whatsoever for their constitutional due process rights as citizens of this country. His only concerns have been 1) winning election to serve for six more years as Durham County's "Minister of Justice," and; 2) self-preservation, or as lengthy a delay of the coming disembowelment as he might secure. The man is pure evil. What ya gonna do, Oz? What ya gonna do, Gov? What ya gonna do, Alberto?<br /><br />Kill it. Kill it now.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-21559480887081979062006-12-12T14:41:00.000-05:002006-12-12T17:14:04.418-05:00Mr. Jones and Me<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/RepJones.jpg?t=1165955129"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/RepJones.jpg?t=1165955129" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In a <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/content/news/crime_safety/duke_lacrosse/20061212_nifong.pdf">December 7th letter</a> released with <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/520626.html">Joe Neff's</a> piece in this afternoon's on-line <i>Raleigh News & Observer</i>, North Carolina Third District U.S. Representative <a href="http://jones.house.gov/html/bio.cfm">Walter B. Jones (R)</a> has requested that U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales launch an investigation into D.A. Mike Nifong's prosecution of the Hoax to <br /><br />"...determine if it constitutes prosecutorial misconduct and has denied these students their civil rights as U.S. citizens under federal law."<br /><br />Over the past several months, many of my constituents and a growing number of mainstream media outlets have raised serious questions about the accuser’s allegations and Mr. Nifong’s prosecution," Jones wrote. Jones highlighted two particular issues which have been brought to his attention: <br /><br />"First, Mr. Nifong directed the Durham Police Department to knowingly violate suspect identification procedures for police personnel in North Carolina," Jones continued. "These procedures require that during any suspect identification process, a suspect’s photo must be shown with those of non-suspects. Mr. Nifong not only directed that this not be done, he also directed the police to tell the accuser that she would only view photos of Duke lacrosse athletes who were at the party. By doing so, Mr. Nifong ensured that the accuser could not make a mistake no matter who she identified because she would inevitably identify Duke athletes." <br /><br />"Second, throughout the investigation Mr. Nifong repeatedly made prejudicial statements to the media. His statements clearly violate the North Carolina Rules of Professional Conduct which prohibit a prosecutor in a criminal case from making extrajudicial statements that ‘heighten public condemnation of the accused’ or, if disseminated via public communication, have the ‘substantial likelihood’ of prejudicing the proceeding," Jones wrote. "Mr. Nifong’s statements ranged from labeling the Duke players "hooligans" to falsely stating that they refused to cooperate with his investigation. Mr. Nifong also continually proclaimed his personal opinion that a sexual attack had occurred and that he believed the accuser. Furthermore, what is perhaps most concerning is Mr. Nifong’s public admission and representation in court that he’s never had the accuser tell him what she alleges occurred that night; Mr. Nifong has stated it was unnecessary to hear her version." <br /><br />"Mr. Attorney General, many of my constituents have expressed concern to me that the facts outlined in this letter are indicative of prosecutorial misconduct. I urge you to look into these matters to ensure that Mr. Nifong’s actions have not illegally denied the accused of their civil rights as American citizens," Jones concluded. <b>"After all, if the American people cannot trust those who they’ve empowered to pursue justice fairly, then hope for this democracy is lost."</b><br /><br />In other news, Cash Michaels is still a <a href="http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=141065">buffoon</a>, and "Poetic Justice" remains an <a href="http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/thread?threadID=140517">ignorant</a> racist.<br /><br />-------------------------------------------<br /><br />Added 5:14 ET:<br /><br /><a href="http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?showtopic=626&st=0&#entry6857657">Quasimodo</a> has posted a list of NC Senators and Congressional Representatives, with their fax numbers and e-mail accessibility, at the Liestoppers message board. He has also supplied a <a href="http://z9.invisionfree.com/LieStoppers_Board/index.php?showtopic=626&st=0&#entry6858120">simple letter</a> that may be cut and pasted for easy transmittal to all NC congressional officials, and your own. <br /><br />Do it!August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-66483662139154197372006-12-01T08:07:00.000-05:002006-12-01T10:34:39.655-05:00Epiphany: Crowley Atones<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/conversionofsaul.jpg?t=1164986572"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/conversionofsaul.jpg?t=1164986572" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />On November 13th, the <i>Durham Herpetic Scum</i> published <a href="http://friendsofdukeuniversity.blogspot.com/2006/03/expired-documents-2.html#c116369134436850905">this</a> ignorant drivel from Duke earth sciences professor, Thomas Crowley. The piece, and its writer, were <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/11/crowleys-full-of-hot-air.html">immediately</a>, and <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/counselor-crowley-hangs-his-shingle.html">justifiably</a>, <a href="http://johninnorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2006/11/heres-another-duke-prof.html">assailed</a> <a href="http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/gaynor/061118">throughout</a> the <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/11/duke-hoax-day-212.html">blogosphere</a>. The outpouring of derision was so voluminous, in fact, that Liestoppers was moved to give the good professor his very own spacious cubicle of infamy, entitled <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/">"Crowley's Box of Rocks,"</a> found about half way down the right margin of their homepage.<br /><br />Today, the <i>Herpetic Scum</i> published the following <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsletters/">letter</a> from Professor Crowley, entitled <b>Lacrosse Retraction</b>, which states, in its entirety, as follows: <br /><br /><i>On Nov. 13, The Herald-Sun published an "Other Voices" piece by me concerning the Duke lacrosse case. I have subsequently been informed of errors in that letter. In particular my blanket statement about behavior of the lacrosse team was neither fair in general nor applicable to the particular case now in dispute. I apologize for this and any other errors. <br /><br />The response to my letter has made me more aware of the intense emotions that are associated with this case. These tensions can only be bad for campus-community relations, and I strongly support any efforts to reduce them. Finally, I sincerely hope that lessons learned from the lacrosse case will be applied to future cases in order to lift the standards of justice for all in Durham County. <br /><br />The writer is a professor at Duke University. <br /><br />THOMAS J. CROWLEY<br />Durham<br />December 1, 2006</i><br /><br />It is important that Professor Crowley's atonement be memorialized here, considering both that, upon very good information and belief, the <i>Herpetic Scum</i> has had it in its possession since the day after <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/11/give-thanks.html">Thanksgiving</a>, and that it will almost assuredly be deleted from public view upon the Rag's own pages in the very near term. <br /><br />Professor Crowley, you are to be commended, Sir. I trust that your turkey, or crow, tasted simply delectable last Thursday. Cleansing one's conscience has that effect. It takes an open mind to <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/legal-analysis-by-thomas-j-crowley-esq.html">hear</a>. It takes courage to stand up and publicly admit that you were wrong. It takes strength of character to fight the powerful forces of injustice. It takes integrity and humility and a <em>teacher's</em> soul to painfully volunteer your conversion to your student charges as a guiding example of what education truly means. If only Duke's <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/stubbornness-of-facts.html">president</a> and <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/michael-gustafson-speaks-out.html">"culturally"</a> <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/grant-farreds-phantom-insights.html">retarded</a> <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/group-of-88s-three-d-response.html">faculty</a> possessed the same.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-46525703281929657832006-11-21T21:42:00.000-05:002006-11-22T00:39:19.182-05:00Give Thanks<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/nifongcross.gif?t=1164163417"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/nifongcross.gif?t=1164163417" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><b>In a testy exchange during cross examination by D.A. Mike Nifong yesterday, the defendant repeatedly answered, "Gobble, gobble." Some media outlets, the ASPCA, and increasingly venomous internet "bloggers" have questioned Nifong's decision to proceed with the case in face of scientific proof that a turkey is anatomically incapable of wielding an axe. ~ Mortimer Stevenson</b> <br /><br />Dear Reade, Collin and Dave,<br /><br />Our beliefs are founded not on our experiences, but on our <span style="font-style:italic;">reactions</span> to those experiences. It has been said that nothing has meaning except the meaning <span style="font-style:italic;">we</span> give it. In other words, our thoughts, our beliefs, are but made up stories, fictions instantaneously crafted from the deeply rooted core files comprising our conditioned personality "blueprints." <br /><br />Thoughts lead to feelings. Feelings lead to actions. Actions lead to results. <br /><br />Have you ever awoken feeling lousy, or in a bad mood, and found that the entire day seems to take on the cast of your initial waking thoughts? I have. Assume that, on first look in the mirror, I <span style="font-style:italic;">think</span> that I look terrible. I'm getting fat. Again. And look at all that gray! The crow's feet! The...age. Those thoughts make me <span style="font-style:italic;">feel</span> terrible walking out the door to face the world. That feeling will imbue my posture, demeanor, carriage and interactions with those I meet during the day. My <span style="font-style:italic;">actions</span>, thus, prompted by those sneaky feelings, determine the <span style="font-style:italic;">results</span> I achieve during the course of the day. Did those I met find me dynamic? Compelling? Worthy of their friendship, belief, time or business? Of course not.<br /><br />If, however, I awake, look in the mirror and <span style="font-style:italic;">think</span>, "I am a sexy bitch, baby, yeah!," I'm going to bound out the door <span style="font-style:italic;">feeling</span> like the cock o' the walk, <span style="font-style:italic;">act</span> like I can bend steel with my bare hands, and compel the <span style="font-style:italic;">results</span> I desire through sheer force of will. <br /><br />Since nothing has meaning except the meaning we give it, since our thoughts are just made up stories that might be instantaneously cast in a positive or negative light, it is up to us to <span style="font-style:italic;">choose</span> the positive alternative. Remember, beliefs are founded not on our experiences, but on our <span style="font-style:italic;">reactions</span> to those experiences, and we each have the power to choose our reactions. On experiencing your visage staring back at you from the mirror, <i>choose</i> to think, "I'm great!" Because you are. <br /><br />No mopey faces on Thursday. No woe-is-me self pity. You are <span style="font-style:italic;">not</span> what others think of you. You are what you think of yourselves. And so, give thanks.<br /><br />Give thanks that you were chosen to bear this cross instead of another teammate. The universe only gives us that which we are strong enough to overcome. Give thanks that you are that strong. Give thanks that this ordeal is, daily, making you stronger still.<br /><br />Give thanks that this surreal nightmare has made you more fully realize the deep love of family. <br /><br />Give thanks for your dads, mobilizing on your behalf like sentinels protecting platoon mates under siege. Give thanks for their love and unwavering support. Give thanks for their unquestioned belief in you. Give thanks for the strength of character they have instilled in you. Give thanks for the strength to conquer adversity that they demanded of you as children and are so proud to see you calling upon in this time of crisis.<br /><br />Give thanks for your moms, ever there with a hug when you need one, and a reassuring word in moments of despair. Give thanks for <span style="font-style:italic;">their</span> inherent strength. Give thanks for their remarkable grace under pressure in the face of that which would make lesser women crumble. Give thanks for their love and unwavering support. Give thanks for their unquestioned belief in you. Give thanks for the strength of character they have instilled in you. Give thanks for the look you see in their eyes. Give thanks that they, too, know the truth.<br /><br />Give thanks for your siblings. Give thanks for their individual talents and successes. Give thanks for their encouragement, love and support. Give thanks, on looking at the younger ones, in the knowledge that they will grow up to be quality adults who bring value to others' lives, just like each of you.<br /><br />Give thanks for your friends, girlfriends and loved ones. Give thanks that, owing to the quality of your character, others are drawn to your positive energy and surround you with their own. Give thanks for their love. Give thanks for their shoulders. Give thanks for their ears. Give thanks for their knowledge of the true you. Give thanks that they have never doubted your innocence. Give thanks that they, too, know.<br /><br />Give thanks that your personal trials have shone a bright light on how far we yet have to go as a nation and species to achieve harmonious coexistence and true equality under law. Give thanks that your endurance of this travesty <span style="font-style:italic;">will</span> effectuate real change. <br /><br />Give thanks for your counsel and all others working tirelessly on your behalf. Give thanks for those who champion your innocence and seek to illuminate truth in the face of ignorance, deception and lies. <br /><br />Give thanks for the recognition that one who tells the truth has nothing to fear. <br /><br />Give thanks that this, too, shall pass and that you will each be the richer, that is, a better man, for having gone through it. <br /><br />Give thanks for those millions who have never met you but pray for you nightly.<br /><br />And give thanks when Tampa Bay kicks the Cowboys' asses.<br /><br />Happy Thanksgiving, Guys.<br /><br />NDAugust Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-75445708654590254382006-11-15T22:25:00.001-05:002006-11-16T02:14:54.079-05:00Oz in Wonderland: You've Got To Move.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/OzinWonderland.jpg"><img style="WIDTH: 200px; CURSOR: hand" alt="" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/OzinWonderland.jpg" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Dear Judge Smith:<br /><br />In his application seeking Chief Justice Parker's approval of your appointment to preside over this "exceptional" Hoax, Judge Orlando Hudson noted that having one person (that would be you) at the helm "would make it easier to have motions and hearings." <br /><br />That was <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/476359.html">three months ago</a>.<br /><br />As then reported in the <i>Herald-Sun</i>, attorneys and judicial colleagues described you as a "soft-spoken, highly competent, no-nonsense man without any apparent trace of arrogance or flamboyance in his demeanor." Officials were then predicting that your appointment would <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/08/judge-osmond-smith-iii-chosen-by.html">improve consistency and efficiency</a>. In the time since, however, judicial efficiency appears to have been consistently thwarted by your seeming indifference to Nifongian hijacking of proceedings. We've seen a lot of that genteel, soft-spoken nature. We've seen little, however, indicative of a high degree of competence and nothing of the "no nonsense" trait that you allegedly possess. We've seen <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/11/duke-hoax-judge-oz-smith-potted-plant.html">a potted plant</a>. And that's bad. <br /><br />On <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/duke-hoax-hearing.html">two</a> <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/yesterdays-hearing.html">occasions</a>, now, you have allowed Mr. Nifong to commandeer your courtroom. You have tacitly countenanced his unprofessional decorum, ad hominem taunts, trademark smirks, arrogant dismissal of your own Order setting forth the end date for evidentiary disclosure, and the making of blatant falsehoods on the record in open court. You have twice permitted open-cage-day at the zoo. The inmate is running your asylum. <br /><br />You let him speak <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/art-of-nifongese.html">Nifongese</a> to tap dance out of the "fifty, or was it 15, press interviews" gaffe. <br /><br />You withheld bench cross upon his assertion that the April 11 meeting with Mangum did not include discussion of case specifics, despite <a href="http://p206.ezboard.com/fhackedbannedandlockeddownfrm19.showMessage?topicID=36.topic">Gottlieb's written recollection to the contrary</a> and <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/10/caught-by-his-own-words.html">his own sworn motion</a> memorializing discussion regarding her ingestion, or not, of contraband drugs at the time in question. You now know, of course, that well before the date on which Nifong claims, incredibly, not to have spoken to Crystal about the case because she was still "too traumatized" to do so (as evidenced by, he says, her "difficulty maintaining eye contact"), she'd been on a pole, or several, same as it ever was, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/503820.html">good old Precious</a>. <br /><br />You raised nary an eyebrow when Nifong informed that audio recordings previously ordered to be preserved had been, oops, <a href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/anderson/anderson142.html">destroyed</a>. <br /><br />You <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/489883.html">denied</a> defense counsel's demand for a Bill of Particulars in the very face of Nifong substituting his particular fiction for that of the false accuser, despite his claim of having never spoken to her about events upon which the indictments were returned. <br /><br />You forebore rebuke when he turned the Constitutional presumption of innocence on its ear by smugly asserting that <a href="http://dwb.newsobserver.com/news/ncwire_news/story/3011737p-9432512c.html">Reade Seligmann need only account for an hour and a half out of his whole life</a> so as to have nothing to worry about. <br /><br />Enough nonsense. It's time. Time to put on your big boy pants, take control of your courtroom and the administration of justice, and bitch slap that smirk to the back wall. <br /><br />Kirk Osborn's photo identification suppression motion, officially on behalf of defendant, Reade Seligmann, but for practical purposes <a href="http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/gaynor/061106">dispositive</a> of the Hoax pled against the three indictees, has been pending since <a href="http://kirkosborn.com/Motions/MotiontoSuppressPhotos.pdf">May 1, 2006</a>. Amendment thereto was filed on or about <a href="http://kirkosborn.com/Motions/AmendmentToMotionToSuppressPhotographs.pdf">June 8, 2006</a>. While you are not subject to criticism for the delinquencies of your sycophantic predecessors, you are <a href="http://forums.talkleft.com/index.php/topic,494.msg25738.html#msg25738">subject to criticism</a> for perpetuating their dereliction of duty. It is time. Time to define your place in history.<br /><br />The North Carolina Criminal Procedure Act <a href="http://www.ncga.state.nc.us/EnactedLegislation/Statutes/HTML/BySection/Chapter_15A/GS_15A-954.html">[NCGS 15A-954 (a)(4)]</a> mandates that, on motion, the court "<em>must</em> dismiss the charges stated in a criminal pleading if it determines that...[t]he defendant's constitutional rights have been flagrantly violated and there is such irreparable prejudice to the defendant's preparation of his case that there is no remedy but to dismiss the prosecution."<br /><br />As correctly noted by <a href="http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_14544.shtml">Mike Gaynor</a>, in the best article yet published setting forth the absurdity of the claim that a trial <em>must</em> be had to fully adjudicate the Hoax, just such flagrant violation and irreparable prejudice has been perpetrated upon the defendants. Judge Stephens' <a href="http://kirkosborn.com/Motions/MotiontoSuppressPhotos.pdf">ridiculous Order</a> compelling a particular class of individuals, i.e., all white members of the 2006 Duke Lacrosse team, to submit to photographic and DNA identification processing was unconstitutional. White, male, non-team individuals attended the subject party. No investigation was undertaken to determine whether Mangum's alleged attackers were of one or the other group. Stephens' Order was made despite the utter absence of probable cause to believe that any particular individual member of the team "class" had committed any felonious offense. <br /><br />Further, the <a href="http://kirkosborn.com/Motions/MotiontoSuppressPhotos.pdf">affidavits</a> of Assistant District Attorney David Saacks and Investigatior Benjamin Himan, offered in support of the application for the identification procedures sought, were perjurious. Their sworn representations alerted Stephens to "medical records that were obtained by subpoena" indicative of Mangum having "signs, symptoms and injuries consistent with being raped and sexually assaulted vaginally and anally." As you, of course, now know, medical records had not yet even been printed, let alone obtained by law enforcement authority, at the time Saacks and Himan swore to the lies quoted, and said records, once obtained, contained no memorializations remotely tending to substantiate Saacks' and Himan's contemptible perjury. Accordingly, the photographs Mangum viewed when making her sham "identifications" of <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/effects-of-corrupted-procedures.html">April 4th</a> should never have been ordered to have been taken in the first place. <br /><br />The unconstitutionally ordered photographs were then "used" by Nifong and Mangum and Gottlieb in what is quite probably <a href="http://www.wral.com/slideshow/dukelacrosse/9141851/detail.html?qs=;s=2;w=800">the most procedurally tainted and flagrantly unconstitutional "lineup," ever</a>. When you consider both the constitutionally impermissible "lineup" of April 4th, <em>and</em> the glaring <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/10/duke-case-identification-issues.html">inconsistencies</a> in Crystal's prior "identifications" of March 16 and 23, but one conclusion obtains: The photographic "identification" of the Duke Three, and any hypothetically proffered in-court identification at trial <a href="http://www.michnews.com/artman/publish/article_14544.shtml">must both be suppressed.</a> The identifications are little more than nothing. Without them, of course, the corrupt prosecutor has less than nothing. <br /><br />Inasmuch as criminal statutes are to be strictly construed, movants must, to be entitled to dismissal under NCGS 15A-954 (a)(4), show both flagrant violation of their constitutional rights [check] <i>and</i> that "there is such irreparable prejudice to the defendant's preparation of his case that there is no remedy but to dismiss the prosecution." This second requisite is what will make the <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/11/from-wall-of-silence-to-community.html">Wannabelievers</a> bang their pots and shout, "But they have the best defense team money can buy! Even if their constitutional rights were flagrantly violated, surely they have not been irreparably prejudiced in the preparation of their case." Stand up to the Wannabelievers, Oz. Tell them to sit down and shut up. <br /><br />Strict construction of criminal statutes does not equate to tortured, absurd construction. Were it not for the corrupt prosecutor's self-interested <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/enabling-hoax.html">need to indict</a> so as to cement the <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/follow-money.html">Black vote</a> before a primary election he would have lost but for the beneficent materialization of the Hoax, the depth and breadth of reasonable doubt would have become apparent at a <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/11/nifongs-procedural-justice.html">probable cause hearing</a>. Mr. Seligmann's <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/07/duke-case-reade-seligmanns-alibi-in.html">alibi</a>, as well as the <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/10/occams-razor-ii.html">totality of exculpatory evidence</a> would have been force-fed down Nifong's throat, the matter never would have made it to the grand jury, and the indictments improvidently granted would never have been returned. Owing exclusively to Nifong's political expediency, the defendants <i>were</i> irreparably prejudiced from preparing, and presenting, their cases at the earliest, "speediest," appropriate time. Had they been permitted to do so, this railroad would have been stopped in its filthy tracks nearly seven months ago. Federal due process compels that their constitutional rights not be yet further flagrantly violated by being forced to defend, and pay to defend, baseless accusations forward to a dog-and-pony show trial.<br /><br />Having never spoken to the accuser, Nifong has no clue as to her credibility (other than what he reads in the papers and blogs) and, thus, cannot claim to slog forward because he "believes her." That's a crock. For him, it never was, and is not now, about her. This travesty yet pends only to fuel Nifong's desperate hope of saving his professional skin on securing convictions rooted in <a href="http://www.webcommentary.com/asp/ShowArticle.asp?id=gaynorm&date=061114">jury nullification</a>. While any such convictions would surely be overturned on appeal is of no moment. Justice delayed is justice denied. <br /> <br />Naturally, defense counsel must move for dismissal. It is disturbing that they have not yet done so. I don't profess to know their motives. I <i>do</i> know, from two decades of civil and criminal litigation practice, that, as surgeons make less money referring their patient candidates to physical therapy than by, um, actually performing surgery, criminal defense attorneys typically make less money forcing disposition by way of motion than they do trying cases. <br /><br />That is not your instant concern, Oz. The ID Suppression motion begs to be decided. Now. Will you succumb to the oppressive coercion of the, um, "special interests?" Will you play Stephens? And Titus? And Pontius Pilate? Will you let this travesty ooze inexorably into the New Year? Will you blame inaction on the busy Holiday season? Will you remember Reade, and Collin, and Dave, and their families as this "Thanksgiving" and Christmas near? Will you actually <i>do</i> something of substance on or before December 15th? Will you cast yourself in the mold of the brave, and truly "Honorable," <a href="http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/trialheroes/essayhorton.html">James E. Horton</a>? Or will you continue to underwhelm? You've got to move, Oz. It is time. Time to define your place in history. Have you the brain, the heart, the courage?<br /><br />Yours, etc., <br /><br />Michael F. McCuskerAugust Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-1161110415193924822006-10-17T12:00:00.000-04:002006-11-15T14:17:44.898-05:00The Answer is "NO," Cash.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/noshame.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/noshame.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />In his column for the week of August 24-30, 2006, <a href="http://wilmingtonjournal.blackpressusa.com/News/article/article.asp?NewsID=72099&sID=4">Cash Michaels</a> wondered, <i><b>SHOULD BLACKS TRUST D.A. MIKE NIFONG?</b></i> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The answer is "NO," Cash, my friend, and you know it.</span> We know it. The whole nation now knows it. <span style="font-weight:bold;">And it's high time you shouted it to your core constituency, including the African American voters of Durham County.</span> <br /><br />Some African American commentators have known it for a lot longer.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/580/story/449892.html">James</a> <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/450867.html">Coleman</a> shouted, in June, that<br /><br /><i>Durham District Attorney Michael Nifong should ask the attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor for the rape case against three Duke lacrosse players and then remove himself and his office from further involvement. This is the only way to restore some degree of public confidence in the handling of the case. Up to now, virtually everything that Nifong has done has undermined public confidence in the case...<br /><br />Someone with professional detachment and unquestioned integrity must review the case and determine whether the evidence against the three students warrants further prosecution. That would serve the best interest of the alleged victim, the three defendants and public.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Either he knew what the facts were and misstated them, or he was making them up. Whether he acted knowing they were false, or if he was reckless, it doesn't matter in the long run. This is the kind of stuff that causes the public to lose confidence in the justice system.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.christiannewswire.com/news/28854340.html">Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson</a> knew then, too:<br /><br /><i>This case has exposed the sad and pathetic condition of the black community. Most blacks are so race conscious that they’ve already convicted these white players. This is a sad commentary about the state of blacks and their outlook on race. Until blacks acknowledge their own racism toward whites, they’ll continue to side with evil—just as they did in the Tawana Brawley fiasco and the O.J. Simpson case.<br /><br />The DA in this case misled the public about the evidence and exploited the anger and racist sentiments of some of Durham’s black population for political gain. It’s a shame that black people have once again allowed themselves to be used by a liberal Democrat. This DA has no case and should withdraw the charges immediately.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/05/the_biggest_scandal.html">Thomas Sowell</a> knew it even earlier:<br /><br /><i>The worst thing said in the case involving rape charges against Duke University students was not said by either the prosecutor or the defense attorneys, or even by any of the accusers or the accused. It was said by a student at North Carolina Central University, a black institution attended by the stripper who made rape charges against Duke lacrosse players.<br /><br />According to Newsweek, the young man at NCCU said that he wanted to see the Duke students prosecuted, "whether it happened or not. It would be justice for things that happened in the past."<br /><br />This is the ugly attitude that is casting a cloud over this whole case. More important, this collective guilt and collective revenge attitude has for years been poisoning race relations in this country...<br /><br />Today, this young man at NCCU represents the culmination of a new racist trend promoted by current black "leaders" to make group entitlements paramount, including seeking group revenge rather than individual justice in courts of law...<br /><br />Tragically, the way the Duke case is being handled, it looks as if District Attorney Michael Nifong is pandering to these ugly feelings. Legal experts seem baffled as to why he is proceeding in the way that he is because it is hard to explain legally.<br /><br />It is not hard to explain politically, however. The District Attorney may well owe his recent election victory to having tapped into the kinds of racial resentments expressed by the young man at North Carolina Central University. <br /><br />Now Mr. Nifong is riding a tiger and cannot safely get off. His bet best may be to let this case drag on until it fizzles out, long after the media have lost interest. His extraordinary postponement of the trial for a year suggests he understands that.<br /><br />In the meantime, the taxi driver who provided the first airtight alibi for one of the accused Duke lacrosse players has been picked up by the police on a flimsy, three-year-old charge, supposedly about shoplifting. He was held for five hours for questioning -- reportedly not about shoplifting, but about the Duke rape charges.<br /><br />Does this smell to high heaven or what?</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/14494721.htm">Jason Whitlock</a> knew it in May, as well:<br /><br /><i>If the Duke lacrosse players were black and the accuser were white, everyone would easily see the similarities between this case and the alleged crimes that often left black men hanging from trees in the early 1900s.<br /><br />That is not written to exonerate the lacrosse players of the rape allegations they face. I don’t know what happened inside that house.<br /><br />But I do know that the investigation, the posturing by black activists and the political gains by the district attorney — Mike Nifong won his democratic re-election bid on Tuesday — make me uncomfortable.<br /><br />Seriously, this case seems like an updated re-enactment of "To Kill a Mockingbird."<br /><br />***<br /><br />If this were 1940, an angry white lynch mob would then gather at the scene of the alleged crime and promise to dole out justice to anyone they suspected of playing a role in the crime. In 2006, mixed-race prayer vigils and protests were held, and black community activists pressured the district attorney to dole out justice to anyone they suspected played a role in the alleged crime.<br /><br />If this were 1940, a well-meaning white group would take sympathy on the alleged victim, a mother of two, and promise her a job. The KKK would promise to protect her from those black animals. In 2006, Jesse Jackson promised the accuser an academic scholarship, and a group purporting to be the Black Panther Party promised to protect her from those white animals.<br /><br />Again, I don’t know what happened inside that house.<br /><br />But I do know that Martin Luther King Jr. and many, many others of all races did not die so that the poor, black and oppressed could surrender the moral high ground and attempt to inflict injustice on the privileged.<br /><br />If that is indeed the game, someone needs to warn Jesse and the good people of Durham, N.C., that it’s a game that the poor, black and oppressed cannot win.<br /><br />When it comes to American justice, it is foolish for black people to choose sides based on race. We’re far better served being on the side of justice at all times and complaining when it doesn’t arrive at our doorstep rather than rooting for injustice to befall the privileged.<br /><br />It takes real courage to maintain the moral high ground, to avoid resorting to self-destructive violence or revenge, to hold on to your dignity, ethics and principles.<br /><br />Do we understand that? Do we, black people, understand the brilliance and necessity of Martin’s dream any better than the people who despised him when he was alive and claim to love him now?<br /><br />If we do, then we need to be pressuring the authorities to pursue justice in the Duke lacrosse case regardless of where that pursuit leads.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/05/29/lacrosse-women-ignorant/">La Shawn Barber</a> just <i>knew</i> it earlier still:<br /><br /><i>Many conservative, including me, said this from the very beginning. Bored white liberals and camera-hogging black “leaders” found something to keep them busy. Even before reading details about the rape allegation, however, I instinctively knew that three white boys at a party did not rape a black stripper. I just knew it. By now we know why Nifong pressed on with this dumb case although he had no evidence linking the players and the stripper. The hunt for the Great White Defendant was mostly media generated, but many were willing to join the hunt, too.</i><br /><br />On the heels of <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/10/11/60minutes/main2082140.shtml"><i>60 Minutes'</i></a> unimpeachable castigation of the ongoing Nifonging of Durham County, many are speaking again. Professor Coleman, of course, was the on-air dagger through Nifong's political heart. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/sports/15774974.htm">Whitlock</a> has again weighed in:<br /><br /><i>The charges against the Duke lacrosse players should be dropped immediately, and the people demanding the dismissal the loudest and most forcefully should be the very people who have made a living allegedly fighting against racial injustice.<br /><br />I've said this before, but it's worth saying again: Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton should be in Durham, N.C., today, promising civil disobedience until the charges are dropped and prosecutor Mike Nifong resigns...<br /><br />It is in the best interest of all black people, especially poor black people, that black people with a voice and a platform call for an end to the persecution of the Duke lacrosse players and program.<br /><br />Speaking out in support of the wealthy Duke players enhances our credibility when we claim that someone poor and black is being treated unfairly. Poor people need that credibility because they can't afford to make bail, let alone a team of high-priced attorneys.<br /><br />By remaining silent about this obvious miscarriage of justice, black leadership looks as racist and cowardly as it paints white people who ignore obvious mistreatment of blacks.</i> <br /><br /><a href="http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/10/16/duke-rape-case/">La Shawn</a> has had enough:<br /><br /><i>All the stripper-accuser had to do was point to three white faces.<br /><br />And ruin three lives.<br /><br />As Nifong’s case collapsed, he came up with alternative theories about condom use. The stripper-accuser said no one used a condom during the alleged gang-rape and that somebody ejaculated inside her. Yet, to account for the embarrassing DNA results, Nifong continued to contradict his own witness!<br /><br />What an utter doofus...<br /><br />Best of all, “60 Minutes” acknowledged that Nifong played up the race angle and pandered to blacks. I gagged once or twice as Bradley kept referring to the strippers as “dancers,” but I got it under control eventually.<br /><br />Wherever the false accuser is, I hope her conscience is eating her alive. Until she rectifies this mess, which means coming forward and confessing she made up the whole thing, and apologizing to Evans, Seligmann, and Finnerty, I hope she never has a moment’s peace. I hope her lies are taking a toll on her health. I hope the damage she’s doing to innocent lives causes tenfold damage to her own.<br /><br />If anyone out there still believes David Evans, Reade Seligmann, or Collin Finnerty raped a black stripper on March 13, 2006, you’re willfully deaf and blind.<br /><br />And stupid.</i><br /><br /><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/earl-ofari-hutchinson/the-danger-of-screaming-r_b_31859.html">Earl Ofari Hutchinson</a> puts it in perspective:<br /><br /><i>The battle lines quickly formed, with black and women's groups on one side, and a slew of coaches, sports jocks, and a doubting public on the other. When DNA tests failed to link the alleged assailants to the crime that should have raised red flags.<br /><br />Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and NAACP President Bruce Gordon should've cautioned blacks against a rush to judgment to condemn the accused without all the facts. They didn't. Their great fear is that if they rebuke blacks that abuse race to grab headlines that would be tantamount to race treason. That's a false fear. If anything, a swift and firm denunciation of the race card in rape cases would enhance the credibility of black leaders. It would show that they are willing to make the tough call and criticize other blacks when they justly deserve criticism... <br /><br />There are no winners in the Duke case. The dubious allegations of rape cost the Lacrosse head coach his job. It wrecked the season for the team. It sullied the reputation of the players who appear to have been falsely accused. It inflamed racial tensions in Durham, North Carolina. It pitted black and white students against each other on the campus. It gave legions of talking head commentator's fresh ammunition to blast blacks as eternal whiners about race, and ever ready to circle the wagons and lambaste whites for real or imagined racial misconduct. It reinforced the ancient stereotype that black women are sexually loose, and if they are the victim of sexual attack, that they bring it on themselves by their profligate behavior.</i><br /><br />In your August 24-30 column, Cash, you noted that <br /><br /><i>While many in the African-American community still very much believe that, if not a sexual assault, "something very wrong happened to the woman hired by Duke lacrosse team captains to exotically dance at their wild off-campus team party last March, there is also growing concern not only that the D.A. may have crippled his own case with public pronouncements he couldn’t back up, but may have actually known for some time he didn’t have the strong evidence he needed to successfully prove his case in a court of law.</i><br /><br />You know, now, that <i>nothing</i> of a sexually assaultive nature, perpetrated by <i>anyone</i>, happened to Crystal Gail Mangum that early morning. You also know that, in <i>fact</i>, D.A. Nifong not only didn't have strong evidence to prove his case; he had none, at all.<br /><br />In the same August piece, you highlighted that <br /><br /><i>The NC NAACP, which early in case made it known that it would be monitoring the investigation to make sure that it was fair to all sides, weighed in.<br /><br />"The NAACP’s aim is to follow the evidence as it unfolds, reporting it accurately and fairly, always seeking justice and rebuilding community," attorney Al McSurely, chair of the NC NAACP’s Legal Redress Committee, said in a statement in mid-April.<br /><br />That same week, stories were flying that the alleged victim may have been slipped a "date rape" drug before she was allegedly assaulted.</i><br /><br />You know, now, of course, that there was no "date rape" drug, as you know there was no rape. That was utter hogwash, just more race-baiting lying from Nifong. And you know it. <br /><br />In fact, you knew it even then:<br /><br /><i>Nifong got that report, discovery evidence shows, in early April, so he had to know before he spoke to Newsweek that he couldn’t prove the alleged victim was drugged, except by the compromised testimony of the second dancer, Kim Roberts Pittman.<br /><br />No DNA evidence connection, no tox report…D.A. Nifong’s case was being crippled more and more, and yet he continued to put on the best public face.<br /><br />After all, he was in a three-way election to keep his job.</i> <br /><br />What I and, I'm sure, all of my readers would like to know is this: Why wasn't that enough, Cash? Why wasn't that enough for you to then take the brave stand previously articulated by Coleman and Whitlock and Barber and Peterson and Sowell? <br /><br />We'd also like to know where NAACP attorney McSurley is now. When is he next going to "accurately and fairly" report to his membership in the interest of "justice and rebuilding community?"<br /><br />You also recount the following in your August 23-30 column:<br /><br /><i>The day before the May primary, the New Black Panther Party, the militant group led by attorney Malik Zulu Shabazz, held a march and rally in Durham to express outrage over the case.<br /><br />Shabazz also called a concerned D.A. Nifong personally, who asked the Black leader not to make trouble during his group’s controversial visit.<br /><br />During a standing-room-only rally at St. Joseph’s A.M.E. Church on the eve of the primary election, Shabazz told the audience that he was convinced the Black alleged victim was beaten and raped by members of the predominately white Duke lacrosse team, and that Nifong had the evidence to prove it.<br /><br />"Duke University is too powerful. If Seligmann and Finnerty were innocent of these crimes, the prosecutor here never would have had them indicted," Shabazz told the audience. "You don’t mess with young men like that, unless you’ve got a case."<br /><br />"That grand jury heard some serious, serious evidence."<br /><br />But even with that analysis, the New Black Panther Party leader was skeptical about the real possibility of justice for the alleged victim.<br /><br />"He better get it right," Shabazz, referring to Nifong, warned, vowing that the Panthers will follow the Duke case "gavel to gavel.<br /><br />"This community will not be used by anyone."</i><br /><br />You, and Shabazz, now well know that his impassioned rhetoric to the NCCU sheep one day before the May primary was nothing but lies. You know that the grand jury heard nothing but lies. You know that Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans were indicted, and their lives irreparably altered forever, on account of those lies.<br /><br />Most importantly, you, and Shabazz, both know that the African American community very well <i>was</i> used, very well, by a soul-less political drunk. <br /><br />You asked, back in August, <br /><br /><i>Did Nifong indeed leverage Durham’s Black community outrage over the alleged racial crime to win what he thought last May would be the only election this year to the post he was originally appointed to?</i><br /><br />You know. We know you know. <br /><br />You continued: <br /><br /><i>Irving Joyner, law professor at North Carolina Central University’s School of Law, and NC NAACP legal monitor of the case, says depending on how successful the defense motions challenging the state’s evidence are, will determine how much of it actually gets to trial.<br /><br />If Judge Smith agrees with the defense and virtually guts D.A. Nifong’s evidence before trial begins, he could just drop the case at that point, Joyner says.<br /><br />If the case does make it to trial, once the state finishes presenting its evidence and sworn testimony, defense attorneys can then make motions to dismiss, claiming the prosecution has failed to meet its burden of proof.<br /><br />Again, if Judge Smith agrees, the case is over, Prof. Joyner says, and the three defendants walk.<br /><br />So whatever cards Nifong hasn’t shown so far will have to become evident soon, and be strong enough to convince the presiding judge that a jury of Durham County citizens should consider the merits.<br /><br />Given what’s known about the evidence so far, that would be a big "if."</i><br /><br />You know. We know you know. <br /><br />You know how you know that Nifong never had the ace-in-sleeve, the big bombshell evidence that so many, for so long, so dearly hoped would prove his horror tales of the Evil White Dukies all true?<br /><br />Because Nifong didn't call a press conference on Friday the Thirteenth, knowing full well that he was 48 hours from being drawn-and-quartered on national television, to announce it. You didn't pick up the <i>Herald-Sun</i> on Friday the Thirteenth, or Saturday the Fourteenth, or Sunday the Fifteenth and read about the "blockbuster evidence" Nifong surely <i>must</i> have.<br /><br />No. What you got...c'mere man, peer in on THIS for a while...what you GOT was a Nifong press conference on <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-779259.html">Monday the Sixteenth</a> to herald...Tah DAAAAAAH...the immaculate indictment! Yes, indeedy, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls and children of one color, less than 24 hours after being filleted before the eyes of the world, Mikey the Magnificent solves the nearly year-old-cold Alpine Road murders of four young black men. <br /><br />Cash? Cash? Stop staring at the <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-779251.html">article</a> confirming that Durham's violent crime rate has reached its highset level in four years under Nifong's 20 month stewardship. He wants you looking over here, with me, on this <i>other</i> page. <br /><br />You are not a stupid man, Cash. You know. We know you know. Don't stand mute and, by sin of inaction, do your part to further the travesty of The Duke Three. <br /><br /><i><b>SHOULD BLACKS TRUST D.A. MIKE NIFONG?</b></i> <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">The answer is "NO," Cash, my friend, and you know it.</span> We know it. The whole nation now knows it. <span style="font-weight:bold;">And it's high time you shouted it to your core constituency, including the African American voters of Durham County.</span>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com27tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-1160624482411910852006-10-11T22:04:00.000-04:002008-01-10T23:41:01.797-05:00Things My Father Taught Me<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/santini.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/santini.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />"Don't ever <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/100/story/493316.html">lie</a> to me," my father would say. <br /><br />Ever see Robert Duvall in <i>The Great Santini</i>? My father, ladies and gentlemen. Without the alcoholism. The oldest of five children raised under the rigidly expectant, impossibly strict, Bronx, pre-Vatican II Irish Catholic, middle-class, Marine Corps, there-is-right-there-is-wrong-there-is-black-there-is-white- there-is-no-gray world view of the Great Santini, I found myself able to lip-synch the continuing script as it was repeated every two years or so for the next temporarily insane up-and-coming sibling. <br /><br />"There are two types of people in this world that I absolutely cannot stand and will not have in my presence," he'd hiss. "<a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/durham/4-777120.html">Liars</a>. And <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/follow-money.html">thieves</a>. And in my experience," I'd silently mouth along with him, "if you are one, you are the other. And no child of mine will be a liar. Or a thief.<br /><br />As you get older, now, you will find yourself facing peer-pressure, and societal pressures, and plenty of opportunities to disappoint your father with poor choices made. You will not always make the correct choice. You will not always make the choice that you would have made if you had stopped and asked yourself, first, 'What would dad think of this?' I understand that. That is called 'growing up.' You're going to screw up. You're going to do things that disappoint me. <br /><br />But," he'd emphasize with an intimidating lean in and squinted eye, "Don't you ever <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/497356.html">lie</a> to me. Remember, I know everything. If you have done something wrong, something you know will disappoint me, or even make me angry, operate on the belief that I already know about it. We parents have a direct line to one another. We have eyes in the backs of our heads and the hearing of bats. If you think you might blame 'Dave,' or 'Jimmy,' or 'Mary,' you'd better think twice and operate on the belief that I have already spoken to their parents. <br /><br />You might be afraid to tell me the truth. You may think I will get mad, or that you will be punished. You're right. I will. And you will. But," he'd lower his voice to a near-whisper at this part, "whatever anger or punishment you might have experienced had you looked me in the eye and told me the truth will be NOTHING compared to to the WRATH OF GOD you will experience the very first time you ever look me in the eye and <a href="http://www.wral.com/news/10054511/detail.html?qs=;s=1;w=800">LIE</a> to me! <br /><br />And remember this," he'd say, in an almost sympathetic tone, "More important than the eyes in the back of my head and my bat-like hearing is the fact that liars are always their own undoing. Liars always, in the end, give themselves away. Because, if you tell <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/10/new-defense-motion.html">one lie</a>, you always have to tell a <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/10/someone-got-it-wrong.html">second lie</a> when questioned about the first, and then <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/10/caught-by-his-own-words.html">a third</a>, to make the first two seem more like the truth. Finally, all of the lies come tumbling down like a house of cards. Knowing everything, as I do, I will see through your lies. I will question you about them. I will force you to concoct more lies. And then I will hang you with them. And you will wish you had never been born.<br /><br />Your chances of fooling me with lies may be one in a thousand. And you may think youself pretty slick, at first, should you fool me. But, that real slick feeling will soon give way to a real sick feeling. Because every single time you look at yourself in the mirror after having lied to fool me, your father who loves you, you will see <a href="http://www.jumpcut.com/view?id=257D607E514B11DBA5C32EF149F8C96D">not only a liar, but a liar and a thief. A thief of trust</a>. And that's not what I'm raising." <br /><br />In my mid-forties now and dad to six myself, I realize that my father was absolutely right.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-1159588813410926252006-09-29T22:32:00.000-04:002006-11-15T14:17:38.703-05:00Don't Make It Harder Than It Has To Be<a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/09/kim-roberts-original-statement.html">Kim, 3.22.06</a>:<br /><br />At about 11:30 Precious arrived and came to the back where we met for the first time. I waited outside and she went inside to collect her money. She showed me her payment ($400.00) and we went straight the bathroom where my outfit was to change clothes. Precious came with her dancing gear on and did not need to change.<br /><br />We conversed about our plan for the dance. There was a knock on the door and we were handed two drinks of equal amounts. We did sip the drinks, but Precious cup fell into the sink. We finished getting dressed and proceeded to the living room, led by Dan, to do our show. There were about 20-25 young guys there, who were all sitting down. Precious and I began our show which, in my opinion, seemed to be going well. Precious began showing signs of intoxication at this point. We continued with the performance until one of the boys brought out a broomstick and after asking if we had any toys, said he would use the broomstick on us.<br /><br />That statement made me uncomfortable and I felt like I wanted to leave. I raised my voice to the boys and said the show was over. The commotion riled Precious up and caused her to get irate. I went to the bathroom with Precious and I told her I wanted to leave. Precious felt we could get more money and that we shouldn't leave yet. <br /><br />***<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/09/jason-bisseys-statement.html">Bissey, 4.26.06</a>:<br /><br />4. At approximately 11:50 p.m., I saw from porch that a car had been stopped directly in front of 610, and noted that two young women, both appearing to be African-American, were walking from the direction of the car and proceeding to the back-yard entrance of 610. One of the two was dressed in an extremely short tan skirt and was wearing high heels. Her hair was pinned up above her ears. The other women was more conservatively dressed in pants and a sweater or blouse of some sort, and her hair was shoulder-length and curly. The two women briefly spoke with one of the men who was in the back yard. I remember hearing that he lived "at the other house," which in retrospect I assume to be the house on Urban Ave. that also was rented to Duke lacrosse team members. This man then left in the direction of Watts St., apparently to residence to which he had just referred. Another young man spoke briefly with the two women just outside the back door of 610, and then proceeded indoors. At this point no one was outside of 610 besides the two young women.<br /><br />5. A very brief conversation between the two women ensued, which I observed by switching to another chair on my porch. The more conservatively dressed woman noticed me at least once, when we made eye contact. She was speaking to the more proactively-dressed woman in a tone that I deduced through body language to be sort of coaching, as if she was preparing her for something that she herself was comfortable with, but needed to talk the woman with the short skirt through it. I did not overhear any specific words at that time. Twice that I noticed during this conversation, a man or two different men opened the back door of 610 and spoke to the women, and the more conservatively dressed woman responded both times something to the effect that they would "be right there," or "just give us a minute."<br /><br />6. I saw the women enter 610 together. After a moment, I remember quite specifically noting that it was Midnight. The reason I know it was Midnight is because I looked at my cell phone and noted the time. At approximately 12:05 a.m. on Tuesday, I re-entered by house and took a shower. <br /><br />***<br /><br /><a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/09/duke-case-slur-analysis.html">Crystal, 4.6.06</a>:<br /><br />"We went into the bathroom and shut the door."<br /><br />"Dan knocked on the door and asked if we wanted a drink. We said yes. He gave us a drink and we continued to talk."<br /><br /><b>IMPORT</b>: "Nothing happened" <i>prior to</i> the conclusion of the "dance" at <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1706546/posts?q=1&&page=301#311">12:04 a.m.</a> <br /><br />***<br /><br /><a href="http://www.kirkosborn.com/Motions/MotionforRecusal4.0.pdf">12:18 a.m.</a> at the LATEST: Seligmann & Wellington leave the house and walk to the corner of Watts and Urban, where Elmo picks them up at 12:19 a.m. <br /><br /><b>Note:</b> Wellington's Affidavit indicates that he and Reade waited at the corner for Elmo's arrival for "a few minutes." It is likely, then, that they left the back porch as early as 12:15 a.m., a minute after Reade had spoken to Elmo on the phone.<br /><br /><b>IMPORT</b>: Fourteen minutes, at most, and perhaps as few as eleven, elapsed between the conclusion of the "dance" and Seligmann's departure from the premises.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/09/kim-roberts-original-statement.html">Kim</a>:<br /><br />We continued with the performance until one of the boys brought out a broomstick and after asking if we had any toys, said he would use the broomstick on us.<br /><br />That statement made me uncomfortable and I felt like I wanted to leave. I raised my voice to the boys and said the show was over. The commotion riled Precious up and caused her to get irate. I went to the bathroom with Precious and I told her I wanted to leave. Precious felt we could get more money and that we shouldn't leave yet. She was uncontrollable at this point and was yelling at the boys who were knocking on the door to leave us alone. I finally decided to leave the house. I left the bathroom, grabbed my bag and exited the house with my dancing gear on.<br /><br />I went to my car, wanting to leave, but not wanting to leave the girl in the house alone. I changed my clothes in the car where some of the boys were coming to my window asking me to talk to them. I was told by one of the guys that Precious was passed out in the back and could I please do something with her.*<br /><br />By this point, it seemed that the fellas may have been ready for the evening to be over. I told them that if they could get her to my car, I would get her out of their hair. Within minutes, she was being helped out of the back yard and into my car...<br /><br />...-forgot to mention that the first time Precious came to the car she left because she felt there was more money to be made. It was after then, that the boys helped her to the car. They carried her by throwing her arms over their shoulders and assisting her walking to the car - I can't remember if only one boy helped or 2.<br /><br />The point in time where I went to get Precious' things from the house, I walked to the back of the house thru the side of the house outside. I entered the house from the outside from a back door. I looked in the bathroom to retrieve her things but could not find them. I exited the house the same way I came in, along the side of the house to my car without finding any of her items.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/09/jason-bisseys-statement.html">Bissey</a>:<br /><br />At approximately 12:05 a.m. on Tuesday, I re-entered by house and took a shower. As I was getting re-dressed in my bedroom, which is on the opposite side of the building from 610, I heard loud voices outside. I had left my front door open, and the voices were carrying from in front of my residence, as well as open windows along the alley between 608 and 610.<br /><br />7. At this point, anywhere from 12:20 a.m. to 12:30 a.m., I observed 20 to 30 young men in the alley between my residence and 610 Buchanan, and on the sidewalk in front of my building. From the front living room of my house, I heard men yelling amongst themselves about money. Specifically, I heard one man call sarcastically at one of his peers that it was "only $100 bucks" that he had apparently spent. It is not clear to me exactly when I noticed one of the men was leaning into the driver's side window of the car that was parked directly in front of 610, but it appeared that he was having a conversation with whomever was in the vehicle at the time...<br /><br />...Eventually, the situation seemed to have subsided, with some of the men calling to each other "guys, let's go" repeatedly in an effort to disperse the party, and the conversation between the women who were apparently in the car and the young man at the driver's window seeming to be calm.<br /><br />9. I noted that the skimpily dressed women had exited the car, saying something to the effect that she would go back into 610 to retrieve her shoe. She seemed agitated, but not hysterical. I left the front door open so that I could hear if the situation flared up again. I would estimate that the young women left the car at around 12:30am.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/09/duke-case-slur-analysis.html">Crystal, 4.6.06</a>:<br /><br />"Nikki and I started crying."<br /><br />"We ran out to the car screaming and crying."<br /><br />"Nikki told me that they were sorry and that they were going to give us $1200 if we stay. Nikki and I got out of the car and went back into the house. As soon as we got back into the house, they were more excited and angry."<br /><br />"Nikki and I started to leave again, and three guys grabbed Nikki and Adam, Matt and Brett grabbed me. They separated us at the master bedroom door while we tried to hold on to each other."<br /><br />"The boys hit and kicked me. Matt grabbed me and looked and me and said sweetheart you can‘t leave."<br /><br /><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/468272.html">Crystal, to Levicy, 3.14.06</a>:<br /><br />The accuser told the nurse that Nikki had urged her to have sex with her and one of the men, "Brett." The woman said something didn't feel right and she stormed out of the house. <span style="font-weight:bold;">She said she argued with Nikki in the car. Brett and Nikki then carried her back into the house, the nurse wrote.<br /><br />"I kept telling them no," the nurse's narrative said. "Nikki said, 'Girl, you want some more to drink, we got to make some money.' ... I said no, I want to get back in the car."<br /><br />The woman said she was taken into a bathroom</span> where three men -- Adam, Brett and Matt -- raped her anally, vaginally and orally, using racial and sexual slurs while they assaulted her. One of the men, Matt, said he was getting married the next day. They did not use condoms and threatened to kill her if she didn't comply, the woman said, according to the nurse's notes.<br /><br />"Someone was knocking on the door letting them know it was time to go. ... Nikki was on the other side of the door and we started arguing."<br /><br />The woman said she begged Nikki to take her home. She told the nurse that Nikki pushed her out of her car and took her money.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wral.com/slideshow/dukelacrosse/8256201/detail.html?qs=;s=6;w=500">Crystal</a>, per statements attributed to her in Durham Police Department Affidavit dated 3.16, and repeated in P.D. Affidavits dated 3.23, 3.27 and 4.18:<br /><br />"The victim and her fellow dancer decided to leave because they were concerned for their safety. As the two women got into a vehicle, they were approached by one of the suspects. He apologized and requested they go back inside and continue to dance. <span style="font-weight:bold;">Shortly after going back into the dwelling, the two women were separated.</span>"<br /><br /><b>IMPORT</b>: "Nothing happened" until after the <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/09/exit-return-and-five-minute-theory.html">exit</a> and <a href="http://durhamwonderland.blogspot.com/2006/09/das-tough-day.html">return</a>. Bissey recalls twenty to 30 men in the alley between his house and 610 Buchanan at around 12:20-12:30 a.m. He has just concluded taking the shower he commenced at 12:05 a.m. He sees a male talking through Kim's open car window to whomever was inside and, at about 12:30 a.m., sees Crystal exit the vehicle saying something about going back to the house to retrieve her shoe.<br /><br /><b>IMPORT:</b> Seligmann was gone before the "exit and return."<br /><br /><b>IMPORT:</b> NOTHING HAPPENED.August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-1158621116382763662006-09-18T18:46:00.000-04:002006-11-15T14:17:35.919-05:00Nifong the Ghostwriter?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/ghostwriter.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/ghostwriter.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />On September 16th, one "Jimmy D. Haynes" had the following "Letter to Bob Ashley" published in the <em>Durham Herald-Sun</em>:<br /><br />***<br /><br /><strong>This is in response to Debrah Correll's letter of September 7. <br /><br />If no rape occurred at the Duke lacrosse party, as she claims, perhaps she can tell us why 40 lacrosse players refused to cooperate with the police investigation on this case and why not one of them has come forward to support the alibis of the defendants. <br /><br />If these 40 players are granted immunity and called to testify at the trial they will have no other choice than to tell us what they know. I believe a declaration of innocence for the defendants is premature. <br /><br />None of the defendants have proven they were not at the scene of the crime when it occurred. They have only proven they left in a hurry because they knew they needed an alibi. <br /><br />I have known District Attorney Mike Nifong for over 15 years. I have found him to be a trustworthy, honest and reliable person. He is doing what a good district attorney is supposed to do. He will get the job done. <br /><br />JIMMY D. HAYNES<br />Durham<br />September 16, 2006 </strong><br /><br />***<br /><br />The following is my Letter to Bob Ashley, <a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/tools/letterstoed/letterform.cfm?sendLetter=letters">submitted for publication</a> thirty seconds ago. I wonder if he'll print it. I do fear that I have run afoul of the "250 word limit" guideline :<br /><br /><strong>The September 16 letter of "Jimmy D. Haynes" is so full of misleading falsehoods that I must conclude one of three things: <br />1) His real name is Michael B. Nifong; <br />2) His real name is Bob Ashley, or;<br />3) His real name is "Liar."<br /><br />Contrary to Mr. "Haynes" assertion that "40 lacrosse players refused to cooperate with the police investigation," is the truth: On March 16th, the three players who shared the subject house, willingly and without requesting counsel, spoke to police officers at the residence for hours, assisted officers' search of the premises, went to the police station without attorneys to give formal statements, offered to take polygraph tests, and voluntarily submitted to DNA sampling. A week later, in response to an unconstitutional Order mandating that all but one member of the team give DNA samples, "all 47 players had gathered...to hear their lawyer, Bob Ekstrand, tell them what they needed to do. Ekstrand was about to tell the players that they could appeal the order as "overbroad," too sweeping in its scope, when the players got up and started heading for their cars to drive downtown to the police station. (The team's one black player was not required to go; the accuser, who is black, claimed her attackers were white.)" -- Newsweek, June 29, 2006 issue.<br /><br />Contrary to Mr. "Haynes" assertions, two of the accused lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, have air-tight alibis proving that they were nowhere near the house when the false accuser fell down drunk. The third was concededly there. The crimes charged against him, however, never happened. Indeed, they are but the "fantastic lies" of a troubled sex industry worker and a dishonorable District Attorney, who framed The Duke Three, inflamed racial tensions in Durham and used, yes, U-S-E-D, the African American community to wrest the primary election from the woman, Freda Black, he had fired but a year earlier. <br /><br />Contrary to Mr. "Haynes" misunderstanding of the Constitution, the defendants need not prove anything. Michael B. Nifong must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the three men whose lives he has irreparably damaged were all in the same bathroom, at the same time, beating, kicking, choking and 3-input raping the false accuser for approximately thirty minutes. He can't. And he won't. <br /><br />I offer condolences to Mr. "Haynes" upon learning of his long association with Mr. Nifong. As my dad used to say when I, too, was but an impressionable youngster: "Show me your friends and I'll tell you what you are."<br /><br />Michael F. McCusker<br />Franklin Lakes, New Jersey<br />September 18, 2006</strong><br /><br />***<br /><br />Please send you own letters to Mr. Ashley via the one hyperlink found in this post. Thank you.<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> The <i>Herald Sun</i> is going to publish my letter! And they corresponded so quickly to let me know the good news! I was a bit disappointed, of course, to learn that they are invoking editorial privilege, but only so as to bring my original offering within the 250 word limit. All-in-all, I must say I am pleasantly surprised at the care taken by Mr. Ashley's staff to fairly reflect my original thoughts. Herewith, my letter, as it will appear in hard copy later this week:<br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>Mr. McCusker,<br /><br />Thank you for your letter to the editor. We've edited your submission just a bit to bring it within the 250 word limit. Hope you don't mind. we believe this edited version (just a few words removed and added here and there) still fairly represents your thoughts. Look for it to be published later this week. Thank you for your interest and loyalty to the H/S.<br /><br />***<br /><br />Re: The September 16 letter of "Jimmy D. Haynes" <br />I must conclude: <br /><br />Mr. "Haynes" assertion that "40 lacrosse players refused to cooperate with the police investigation," is the truth. On March 16th, the three players who shared the subject house, willingly “gathered...” When the players got up and started heading for their cars to drive, two of the accused lacrosse players, Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, fell down drunk. The third was concededly there. <br /><br />Indeed, they are but "fantastic liars". The Duke Three, inflamed racial tensions in Durham and used, yes, U-S-E-D, the African American community. <br /><br />Mr. "Haynes" understanding of the Constitution is right on, Michael B. Nifong need not prove anything. <br /><br />I offer condolences to the three defendants upon learning of their long association with other lacrosse players. As my dad used to say when I, too, was but an impressionable youngster: "Show me your friends and I'll tell you what you are."</b><br /><br />***<br /><br />Thanks to Anonymous 8:12 for the hipping me to the good news. (I know who you are!)<br /><br />I can't <em>believe</em> it! I'm going to be published in a <em>real live newspaper!!</em><br /><br />***<br /><br /><b>Update, 19 September:</b><br /><br /><a href="http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/hsletters/">Rodney Turner's Rebuttal</a>:<br /><br /><strong>Rich white males are America's new victims<br /> <br />Jimmy Haynes, [Letters, Sept. 16] like Mike Nifong, apparently has not been paying attention to the evidence in the Duke lacrosse hoax. Haynes says that if the defendants are innocent then why have they not come forward to support the alibis of the wrongly accused. They have come forward. All of the players have signed affidavits stating no rape occurred. And in the beginning, the three residents of the house fully cooperated with police without legal council and all three offered to take polygraph test. <br /><br />I guess to Haynes, unless they lied and told authorities what Haynes wants to hear, then they are not cooperating. The Duke players were cooperating until they realized District Attorney Mike Nifong was not interested in the evidence, just like Haynes. Nifong had a primary election to win. Anyone that has been actually following the case would realize that there is not one. There is not one piece of evidence that supports a rape. <br /><br />The only people that are supporting this travesty are people with agendas (race, sex or class) or individuals that are ignorant of the evidence. Just because the characters in this fiasco do not support the sex or color of society's definition of victimization does not mean it is not an injustice. <br /><br />Just like Jews and blacks in the world's history the new group that society blindly allows people with agendas to discriminate against is rich white males. <br /><br />RODNEY TURNER<br />Durham<br />September 19, 2006</strong>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com35tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-1158425506462169342006-09-16T11:22:00.000-04:002006-11-15T14:17:35.827-05:00Hey Kids! Estimate Nifong's Pension! It's Fun!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/spinthewheel.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/spinthewheel.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><i><b>Aaaaaaah! I GET it! It's a profit deal!!!</b></i><br />~Steve Martin, <i>The Jerk</i>, 1979<br /><br />Now, thanks to the handy-dandy <a href="http://www.nctreasurer.com/estimator/caltest1.asp">North Carolina Department of State Treasurer Retirement Systems Division Pension Benefits Estimator</a>, you, too, can enjoy hours of relaxing entertainment with simple math calculations, just like Mikey!<br /><br />Wanna know whether the date of Mikey's detachment from civil service will have any effect on the monthly amount he might expect from a grateful State of North Carolina? Well, now you can! After accessing the Benefits Estimator <a href="http://www.nctreasurer.com/estimator/caltest1.asp">main page</a>, simply click on the button conveniently provided for "Local Government Employees," and "Continue."<br /><br />Once <a href="http://www.nctreasurer.com/estimator/caltest1.asp">here</a>, the fun really begins!<br /><br />Of course, in order to secure a truly <em>accurate</em> retirement benefits estimate, you'd need to know all of Mikey's relevant input data. Alas, some of that information is known only by Mikey and State or Federal benefits administrators. You won't know, for example, his accumulated Sick Leave, or his estimated monthly Social Security Benefit at age 62.<br /><br />His DOB, commencement year and cumulative years of service are <a href="http://blogs.newsobserver.com/voters_guide/index.php?title=title_50&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1">here</a>, though, and we can safely assume that, because of his long service, he makes <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060904fa_fact">"around a hundred thousand dollars a year."</a> I know, I know, that <i>does</i> seem light for the 27-year "best lawyer in the office," but, hey, it's North Carolina. <br /><br />Ready? Great! Let's do a few together, okay? Who's with me? I thought so!<br /><br />Example Number 1:<br /><br />Just for fun, let's say Mikey loses the November election or is otherwise removed from office at the turn of the year. If we input his Date of Birth (09/14/1950), Date of Retirement (01/01/2007), Years of Creditable Service (lets say 28), Average Final Compensation (let's err on the conservative side and say exactly $100,000.00),* and click "calculate benefits," the North Carolina Treasury Department's official website indicates that Mikey could expect to receive at least <strong>$3,822</strong> in pension benefits per month. "At least," of course, because we have not input his Accumulated Sick Leave or Age 62 SS Benefit. And, let me see those hands now, who thinks that Mikey has, really, been doing quite a bit better than $100K since his ol' pal, Governor Easley, appointed him to the top post in the Office? Goooood! I think so, too. <br /><br />* This is a <em>reeeeeally</em> important component of the calculation. The longer Mikey remains in office, presumably, the higher his yearly salary and, thus, the higher his Average Final Compensation. <br /><br />Mikey just turned fifty-six years old. Did you all remember to wish him a Happy Birthday? That's pretty good. Pretty good. But I'd like the rest of you to send him a card, okay? Just drop it in the mail to his home address, 615 November Drive, Durham, NC 27712. November Drive! Oooh, that's a <i>hoot!</i>, isn't it boys and girls?<br /><br />Anyway, back to our math homework. Let's say Mikey gets a really special present this year and wins the election. I know, I know, but, just for shits and giggles, work with me here, okay? In my admittedly absurd hypothetical, Mikey wants to retire six years from now, at age 62, when his son will be a college junior.<br /><br />Example Number 2: <br /><br />Entering "01/01/2013" in the Date of Retirement box, "33" for Years of Creditable Service, and, oh, a very reasonable "$120,000.00" in the space provided for Average Final Compensation yields Mikey's estimated monthly retirement benefit of: <strong>$6,015</strong>. Isn't this fun?<br /><br />Example Number 3: <br /><br />Lets say Mikey wants to retire eight years from now, after the boy graduates from college: Using "01/01/2015" as the Date of Retirement, "35" Years of Creditable Service, and an extremely conservative "$125,000.00" to represent Average Final Compensation, Mikey might expect an estimated <strong>$6,744</strong> per month in State retirement benefits. Kind of makes those additional two years not seem worth it, huh?<br /><br />But now, I know, I know, perish the thought, lets say Mikey remains in office for another ten years! <br /><br />Example Number 4:<br /><br />He retires on "01/01/2017," with "37" years of service, and an Average Final Compensation of "150,000.00" (Hey, he's been Grand Poobah for a decade). Y'all ready for this? <br /><br /><strong>$8,556.</strong><br /><br />Wow! Well more than double what he might expect, if anything at all, if driven out in disgrace this January! Go crazy, kids! Try your own figures! Mikey likes this even more than reading the list of <a href="http://recallnifong.blogspot.com/">Lewis Cheek's</a> write-in petitioners! <br /><br />My examples are, of course, merely estimates, subject to tweak upon the input of data known only to Mikey or State and Federal benefits administrators. I also do not know if District Attorneys are parties to or beneficiaries of a super-duper special contract that would substantially enhance his estimated retirement benefits over those of mere mortal "Local Goverment Employees." Jeepers, I sure would like to get my hands on the controlling documents, wouldn't you? <br /><br />It's easy to see, however, why Mikey has unequivocally stated that he <a href="http://mikenifong.com/pdf/LetterToVoters_Nov.pdf">"must win on November 7."</a> <br /><br />It's also easy to see why it is a travesty unto itself that a Special Prosecutor has not been appointed to replace him in the, um, further "handling" of the Duke Hoax, isn't it kids? <br /><br />Then again, he's only looking out for the best interests of his son.<br /><br /><b>Update:</b> FWIW, according to <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1698282/posts?page=352#352">"old whippersnapper"</a> over at <a href="http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=dukelax">Free Republic</a>, <br /><br /><i>Nifong's a member of a very nice pension system. When he was appointed DA Nifong certainly would have received a significant increase in the salary he had been receiving as an ADA. And that salary is what his pension system will use to calculate his pension.<br /><br />Not only is his salary higher, but as a DA his pension will be based upon 3.02% of his final salary for each year of service instead of the 1.85% for each year that he "earned" as an ADA. So the difference between the pension he'll get if he continues to be DA and what he'd receive if he had to go back to being an ADA is VERY significant. The desire to protect the difference (i.e., higher current salary and ultimately higher pension) is apparently enough to corrupt Nifong and drive him to lie, attempt to destroy other folks' lives/careers, attempt to have "evidence" manufactured. In other words, enough for him to sell his integrity (assuming he had any to begin with) and lose his soul. He apparently doesn't value his integrity and reputation very much.</i><br /> <br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5033/3266/1600/ticktock.3.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5033/3266/1600/ticktock.3.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><i>Tickticktickticktickticktickticktickticktickticktickticktick...</i>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30450074.post-1157082486856004472006-08-31T23:46:00.000-04:002006-11-15T14:17:34.930-05:00Whither Nifong's Assets?<a href="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/launder.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px;" src="http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a340/12_C/launder.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br /><br />I'll say it: Nifong cannot win the November election. His time as Durham County D.A. is all but done. Shortly after the May 2 Democratic primary, Nifong <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/436642.html">said</a>, "I expect if this issue had never come up we would have ended up with the same outcome." That's a <a href="http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/25357.html">crock</a>. I expect that if this issue had never come up, Nifong would have been trounced by <a href="http://outsidereport.blogspot.com/2006/04/freda-black-made-him-do-it-explaining.html#comments">Freda Black</a>, whose pre-April name recognition far exceeded Nifong's. In 2003, she was busy, on national television, <a href="http://www.courttv.com/trials/novelist/100303_ctv.html">convicting</a> local author, Michael Peterson, of murdering his socialite wife, while Nifong was pleading out traffic infractions. Nifong <a href="http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=local&id=4124686">fired Black</a> the day after Governor Easley appointed him to the top spot in the D.A.'s office. Early spring polls showed Nifong running <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060904fa_fact">considerably behind Black</a> and, as of the day before the election, <a href="http://www.surveyusa.com/client/PollPrint.aspz?g=8b540b49-7e13-44d5-9ba8-b3711253a648#search=%22Poll%20Nifong%20Freda%20Black%20%22">one poll</a> still showed him trailing her by a percentage point, two points shy of the 40% necessary to carry the primary. The same poll, however, demonstrated Nifong's then-prevailing favor with the African American voter. Nifong, of course, won the May 2 primary by a mere <a href="http://www.co.durham.nc.us/departments/elec/2006_Election/Results/Primary/Results_Update/UPDATES/Primary_06_Webfile.pdf"> 833 votes</a>. Black voters, however, then preferred Nifong <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/436642.html">2-to-1</a> over Black. <br /><br />It's not May anymore.<br /><br />On May 2, many in the local Black community were influenced by, among others, the early <a href="http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/message?byThread=false&messageID=734546">writings</a> of <a href="http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/message?byThread=false&messageID=734547">Cash</a> <a href="http://forums.go.com/abclocal/WTVD/message?byThread=false&messageID=734549"> Michaels</a>, the <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/422462.html">sickening</a>, pre-evidence <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/421799.html">guilty verdict</a> of the <i><a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/122/story/421494.html">News</a> <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/102/story/422787.html">and</a> <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/424766.html">Observer</a></i>, the lapdog timidity of <i>Herald Sun</i> editor Bob <a href="http://leadandgold.blogspot.com/2006_07_01_leadandgold_archive.html#115212888472097604">I-think-that-the-25-year- veteran-must-have-some-evidence-or-he-would-have-dropped- the-case-long-ago</a> Ashley, and the <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/08/hag-of-hoax.html">recklessly dangerous lunatic rants</a> of journalistic criminals like Wendy Murphy, Nancy Grace and Goergia Goslee. Looking back, it is understandable that many Black primary voters took comfort in the white D.A. who had <a href="http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/dukemag/cgi-bin/printout.pl?date=050606&article=lacrosse">vowed</a> that he was "not going to allow Durham's view in the minds of the world to be a bunch of lacrosse players at Duke raping a black girl from Durham"; who had been so visibly and vocally behind their <a href="http://ourheartsworld.com/">Dear Sister</a>.<br /><br />In the months since, despite his protestations to the contrary, <a href="http://www.wilmingtonjournal.com/news/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=71765&sID=4">Cash</a> has <a href="http://www.wilmingtonjournal.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=72099&sID=4">done a 180</a>, and more Blacks are critically assessing the hard evidence. They are more likely to now be aware of the early doubts of respected local attorney <a href="http://www.gambling911.com/033106Dnews.html">"Butch" Williams</a> and straight-shooter nonpareil, <a href="http://lashawnbarber.com/archives/2006/05/29/lacrosse-women-ignorant/">La Shawn Barber</a>, who "just <i>knew</i> it" was a hoax from the get-go. They have, by now, likely read of Duke law professor, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/450049.html">James</a> <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/1185/story/450867.html">Coleman's</a>, call for a special prosecutor because, "I don't think [Nifong's] showing detached judgment. I personally have no confidence in him....Either he knew what the facts were and misstated them, or he was making them up. Whether he acted knowing they were false, or if he was reckless, it doesn't matter in the long run. This is the kind of stuff that causes the public to lose confidence in the justice system." By now, many local Blacks feel, as did <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/sports/14494721.htm">Jason Whitlock</a> on May 4th, "that Martin Luther King Jr. and many, many others of all races did not die so that the poor, black and oppressed could surrender the moral high ground and attempt to inflict injustice on the privileged." They have seen a <a href="http://liestoppers.blogspot.com/2006/08/tony-soprano-channeling-sam-spade.html">racist white Durham cop</a> insulated from criminal charges for his role in the assault of a black cook because of his then-perceived importance to Nifong's Folly. They have realized the greatest fear of <a href="http://www.wilmingtonjournal.com/News/Article/Article.asp?NewsID=72099&sID=4">Malik Zulu Shabazz</a>, all the way back on May 1: They've been used.<br /><br />Moreover, as pointed out by KC Johnson on <a href="http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/25357.html">May 19th</a>, "According to the latest voter registration figures, Durham County has 27,070 registered Republicans, 24,566 of whom are white. The county has 86,621 registered Democrats, 46,586 of whom are black. So the demographic bloc supportive of Nifong's behavior formed a majority of the Democratic electorate, while those most likely to be alienated by his tactics couldn't vote in the primary. As the director of the Durham County Board of Elections noted the day after the primary, <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/630/story/435392.html">"We had a lot of irate, irate Republicans who couldn't vote for district attorney."</a><br /><br />Professor Johnson continued, making the following salient observation: "One other most unusual demographic item in the Durham County electorate probably helped Nifong. Rape is a crime. But, as feminist theorists have contended and most defense lawyers understand, it's also a crime that men and women interpret somewhat differently. In normal circumstances, the fact that, in the abstract, women are more likely than men to sympathize with the accuser in a rape case is of no political consequence. But Durham County isn't normal in this regard. Stunningly (to me, anyway), the county has 79,546 female voters, as opposed to 60,087 males. (That's a female-to-male ratio of roughly 4:3.) As a local race, this contest had no exit polls, and perhaps the final vote contained no gender distinction. But it's doubtful that this gender breakdown hurt Nifong." It is even more doubtful that women voting in the general election will forgive Nifong. Vocal feminist and victim's rights advocate <a href="http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/8/9/83336.shtml">Susan Estrich</a> has abandoned him. Even Estrich has come to understand that Nifong's perpetuation of the hoax for personal political gain has set back the just cause of advancing real rape victim's rights immeasurably.<br /><br />It's over. <br /><br />Unfortunately, the North Carolina State Bar, which ranks <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/08/liestoppers-ratchets-up-disbar-nifong.html">last in the nation</a> when it comes disciplining its unethical brethren, does not have the inclination or mechanistic speed to disbar Nifong before November. <a href="http://news.nationaljournal.com/articles/0522taylor.htm">Repeated</a> <a href="http://hnn.us/blogs/entries/29040.html">calls</a> for the <a href="http://www.newsobserver.com/138/story/476025.html">federal government</a> to <a href="http://johnsville.blogspot.com/2006/08/duke-case-horsemen-of-hoax.html">step into the cesspool that is Durham</a> have fallen upon deaf ears. Which means, despite <a href="http://crystalmess.blogspot.com/2006/08/tickticktickticktickticktick.html#links"><i>60 Minutes'</a></i> coming bunker buster, Nifong is going to lose his job the good, old-fashioned way. He's going to be thrown out by a citizenry demanding <a href="http://recallnifong.blogspot.com/">Anyone But Him</a>. <br /><br />We know from his own <a href="http://mikenifong.com/candidate.php">publicity machine</a> that Nifong is but a circumstances-elevated <a href="http://forum.wordreference.com/archive/index.php?t-5525.html">ham-and-egger</a>, the civil-servant equivalent of the eke-it-out ambulance chaser. Unable to find a job in the private sector upon law school graduation, he took on as an unpaid volunteer for the Durham D.A.'s office before being offered a full-time position six months later. That was in April, 1979. "He has been there ever since." "Acquaintances say that Nifong never coveted the top job; he wasn’t political, and lacked the appetite and the instinct for public campaigning. Because of his long service, he <a href="http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:VFXxPbwIzs0J:www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060904fa_fact+Poll:+Freda+Black+Leads+Nifong+Primary+race&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=9">earned around a hundred thousand dollars a year</a>, nearly as much as some of the district attorneys he worked for." <br /><br />After he is cast out, Nifong will be <i>de facto</i> unemployable in the thinly-sliced legal specialty that has defined his adulthood. He's a disgrace, a proven liar, the antithesis of a minister of justice. DAs throughout the state and nation will refuse to have Nifong darken their doors. Easley, eyeing a U.S. Senate seat, is not, people, going to re-appoint his greatest political embarassment. In the words of Tommy Chong, "That's just fuckin' stupid, man." After nearly thirty years honing his craft, Nifong will be left without a place to practice it. This will be the first post-loss reality to come to home to roost. Bar discipline, disbarment proceedings, federal indictment and civil trials (x3) will only follow, later. <br /><br />The foregoing crystalizes the need for Nifong to be replaced by a special prosecutor immediately. Obviously, Nifong has a humongous conflict of interest. It is in his selfish interest to continue to posture this case as one carried forward by him reasonably, in good faith, evidence be damned. Else, he's being trained by Napolean Dynamite on how to properly wear the cardboard sailor's hat and <i>always</i> ask if they'd like fries with that. <br /><br />This brings me to one further observation and, finally, the question posed by the title of this entry. Several questions, actually:<br /><br />It is my understanding that Nifong, like all North Carolina public service employees, is, in the first instance, entitled to retirement pension benefits. (Geographically removed as I am from Durham, and with few nuggets yielded from various search engines, I have been unable to flesh out particulars regarding the formal name of what I presume is a collective bargaining agreement, the administrator of the fund, or the contractually mandated payment scheme. I urge others "close to the action" -- Joe? John? Liestoppers? -- to take up the scent and sniff this out.)<br /> <br />* After nearly three decades of dutiful foot soldiery, what shall be the total vested value of Nifong's state employee's pension at the time of his detachment from service?<br /><br />* Shall he still be entitled to it if disbarred?<br /><br />* Shall he still be entitled to it if criminally convicted of federal crimes? <br /><br />* Shall he still be entitled to it after the County pays Reade, Collin and Dave so many millions of dollars in satisfaction of judgments owing due to Nifong's malicious, reckless and intentional acts? While the County will be obligated to pay judgments or settlements occasioned due to the culpable acts of its employee, it may be entitled to indemnification back from Nifong, personally, for monetary damages arising from any of his acts adjudged to have been undertaken intentionally. <br /><br />* Are any such pension benefits even subject to attachment, <i>i.e.</i>, assets exposed to satisfy personal judgment obligations? <br /><br />*If not, has Nifong undertaken to accelerate or transfer regular salary or other compensation pro-actively into a non-reachable pension with the intent of insulating same from the reach of the civil trial victors?<br /><br />The object, of course, is to bankrupt Nifong personally. <br /><br />I suspect that <a href="http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/gaynor/060810">Enquiring</a> <a href="http://www.iic-offp.org/story15june04.htm">Cornacchias</a> would like to know.<br /><br /><i>This ain't no party.<br />This ain't no disco.<br />This ain't no foolin' around!<br /><a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5033/3266/1600/ticktock.3.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 320px;" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5033/3266/1600/ticktock.3.jpg" border="0" alt="" /></a><br />This ain't no Ashley<br />Or 'Ol' Grey Lady'<br />It's so much <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13392547/site/newsweek/">worse on the blogs!</a></i>August Westhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09919963003128838777noreply@blogger.com1